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Appendix Grammatical and semantic factors as concommitant causes of sound-change.*
The fact of adverbs, numerals, pronominal forms, post-positions, case-endigs etc. being prone to phonetic change earlier and more frequent as compared to other grammatic forms and elements and thus producing during a particular stage or time-period ‘irregularity' in the process of phonetic change can be well-substantiated from the history of Indo-Aryan. As far back as 1921, R. L. Turner had drawn our attention to this important characteristic of phonetic change in his article ‘The phonetic weakness of terminational elements in Indo-Aryan languages'.
He further developed this theme in the third lecture of his Gune Mimomrial Lectures (Some problems of Sound change in IndoAryan, 1960.). We can cite Apabhramśa flexional endings (especially those involving the 'exceptional' (i.e. earlier) change -s->-has further instances'.
While recognizing the relative prominence and subservience of sounds within a form or phrase as the chief conditioning factor of change, it has to be taken into consideration that the degree of prominence is controlled within the discourse situation by the grammatical or semantic importance given to particular elements as required by particular circumstances. 'Full’ words becoming empty words :
Within a phrase or compound expression when the meaning of one constituent is semantically subordinate to another constituent it effects the sound-form of the expression. The subordinate elements formning part of a compound looses the accent or stress it has when
Translation of pp. 77-84 of Gujarati Bhäsă-nă Itihăs-ni Ketlik Samasyão (= Some problems of the history of the Gujarati languaage), 1976. H. C. Bhayani, 'A few problems of Apabhramsa reconsidered,' Indian Linguistics, 25, 1961. 71-76. For the grammatical and morphophonemic conditioning of sound change in general see R. Anttila, 'An Introduction to Historical and Comparative Linguistics, 1972, 77-84.
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