Madhuvidya

Author(s): S D Laddu, T N Dharmadhikari, Madhvi Kolhatkar, Pratibha Pingle
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 395

THREE NOTES
87
of the coming together of the first person marker and the plural morpheme, no epenthetic e occurs : yákwaks' we several exclusive eat it'. Or, to take a different type, no epenthesis occurs in rákwas ‘he picks it up'.
King himself observes that it would be possible to explain away the first irregularity by assuming a plus-juncture before the adjective ending and say that the final a disappears in Yiddish except after plus-juncture. But he disfavours any such attempt. In his opinion that would be a gimmick and not a real solution. As for the second case, at least in respect of rákwas, he observes that the underlying form of the cluster kw in that word is / kol. But he says that this does not help us as the rule converting /ko/ to / kw / is older than the rule of epenthesis and hence even in this case kw should have given rise to kew.
Now exceptions to the statements of phonetic changes have been observed since the very start of comparative studies. Acceptance of the regularity hypothesis has compelled scholars to look closely at the exceptions and this has led to many good explanations. In the opinion of Verner, who was responsible for one such brilliant explanation, it is the task of the linguists to search for the rule for the irreguarity.
The regularity hypothesis has definitely proved its usefulness and hence it is not advisable to discard it or modify it as suggested by King. Rather, it would be better to say that in the Yiddish and Mohawk examples cited above the phonetic conditioning responsible for the exception has been lost to us. It may have been some kind of juncture, a difference in pronunciation, or stress. Some day it may be possible for us to discover it. But no attempt will be made in this direction if the chapter is considered closed by accepting the modified vers. ion of the regularity hypothesis. Verner, for example, could never have explained satisfactorily exceptions to Grimm's Law if Vedic Sanskrit with its accent was not available to him. If he had merely forms from classical Sanskrit, which does not mark accent, Skt. pitar : Gmc, fadar would have continued to remain a probem like the examples cited by King. REFERENCE : Bloomfield, Leonard 1933. Language, New York : Holt. Hockett, Charles F. 1965. Sound change. Language 41. 185ff. [ Received 21 February, 1972).
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