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A STUDY OF THE GUJARATI LANGUAGE
turn, been followed by significant changes in the grammatical systems, thus providing ns with more reliable data on the stages in the history of the Gujarati Language. Statements about changes in the consonants have been excluded mainly because they are relatively few, and they do not play a significant role in the changes in the grammatical system. Where the changes in consonant and vowel systems are interdependent, statements about consonant changes have been made.
5.47. Transition from OIA to MIA has been already described by Pischel, Bloch, Chatterji and others. The most significant features of this change are merging of OIA I to MIA a, i or u; reduction of OIA diphthongs ai and ou to MIA e and o and shortening of vowels under certain conditions. These changes (excluding > a, i, u) can be presented as follows:
OIA
MIA
DIA
MIA
ai
--
- -------ai
- -
au
----au
DIA
MIA
asa
Dotted line indicates a later MIA stage. There are some cases where OIA i and u in closed syllables > MIA e and o in closed syllables. They merge with the eando phonemes of MIA. These e and o have been regarded as short, but since vowel quantity is conditioned by syllable structure, no contrast between short and long e and ois visible anywhere. Hence it is not necessary to set up long è and Ō as separate phonemes.
5.48. Apparently, the changes from OIA to MIA are very few. Some long vowels have become short vowels, diphthongs have become monophthongs and some i and u of OIA have merged with e and o of MIA. But, the distribution of vowels in MIA is significantly different from OIA. Vowel length in OIA is distinctive, while in MIA it depends largely on syllable structure. Vowels in closed syllables are always short. Final vowels are mainly short. Thus we get a system where quantity of vowels is mainly conditioned by the syllable structure, while in OIA the quantity of vowels is contrastive irrespective of the nature of the syllable. A simple stop consonant did not occur intervocalically in MIA; it could occur only as a homorganic geminate. Thus, in non-final position the contrast of length is reduced to cases of vowels occuring before m ņ, sl, dr, y and v. 1
. It is possible to interpret length of the stop consonants as allophonic in MIA, i.e. initially they occur as single and intervocalically they oecur geminated. For the suggestion see N. S. Troubet zkoy, Principes des Phonologie ( French Translation 1949), Pp 305. If this suggestion is followed, then the consonant length would be phonemic only in cases of those nasals and spirants which can occur single or geminated intervocalically : m, n, s, 1 and v. r and y do not occur geminated; n and ņ do not contrast, since the former occurs initially and latter intervocalically, but nn and în both occur intervocalically and hence contrast. Length will be signifi. capt in the case of the retroflex voiced stop d, since it oceurs initially as single but intervocalically it can occur single and geminated
( Continued on page 25 )
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