A Sanskrit Grammar: Including Both the Classical Language, and the Older Dialects, of Veda and Brahmana

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Brietkopf and Härtel, 1879 - 485 pages
 

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Page 17 - Sanskrit these k' g' sounds are uniformly represented by the so-called "cerebrals" or "linguals" written / d. Whitney, 1. c., §45, says: "The lingual mutes are by all native authorities defined as uttered with the tip of the tongue turned up and drawn back into the dome of the palate (somewhat as the usual English smooth r is pronounced"). They are (§46) "perhaps derived from the aboriginal languages of India".
Page 200 - The difference between imperative ami subjunctive and optative, in their fundamental and most characteristic uses, is one of degree. . . . There is, in fact, nothing in the earliest employment of these modes to prove that they might not all be specialised uses of forms originally equivalent — having, for instance, a general future meaning.
Page 20 - ... which does not show also forms with r; words written with the one letter are found in other texts, or in other parts of the same texts, written with the other.
Page 51 - ... way. Where an oral stop stood in word-final position, it came to be unreleased, thus losing its aspiration and its voice and becoming a weakly articulated consonant in every respect. Where such a consonant was in a cluster, ie preceded by other consonants, it was lost completely. As Whitney says, 'In general, only one consonant, of whatever kind, is allowed to stand at the end of a word; if two or more would etymologically occur there, the last is dropped, and again the last, and so on, till...
Page 25 - The anusvara, n or m, is a nasal sound lacking that closure of the organs which is required to make a nasal mute; in its utterance there is nasal resonance along with some degree of openness of the mouth.
Page 29 - Accent. 80. The phenomena of accent are, by the Hindu grammarians of all ages alike, described and treated as depending on a variation of tone or pitch; of any difference of stress involved, they make no account.
Page viii - ... to include also in the presentation the forms and constructions of the older language, as exhibited in the Veda and Brahmana"; "to treat the language throughout as an accented one"; "to cast all statements, classifications, and so on, into a form consistent with the teachings of linguistic science.
Page 49 - There was some question among the Hindu grammarians as to whether the final mute is to be estimated as of surd or of sonant quality; but the great weight of authority, and the invariable practice of the manuscripts, favor the surd.' I would consider this a normal reaction to an unreleased final stop which is of necessity difficult to equate unequivocally with either a surd or a sonant (voiceless or voiced stop) in initial or medial position. What I am suggesting is, thus, that it was not the presence...
Page 321 - ... a preceding action to that signified by the verb of the clause. It has thus the virtual value of an indeclinable participle, present or past, qualifying the actor whose action it describes : Thus, for example : frutvai 'va ca 'bruvan, 'and hearing (or having heard) they spoke'; tebhyah pratynaya 'thai 'tan paripapracha, 'having given them his promise, he then questioned them
Page 31 - ... authority in matters of native Vedic grammar, says (§85) ' This seems to mean that the voice, which is borne up at the higher pitch to the end of the acute syllable, does not ordinarily drop to grave pitch by an instantaneous movement, but descends by a more or less perceptible slide in the course of the following syllable. No Hindu authority suggests the theory of a middle or intermediate tone for the enclitic, any more than for the independent circumflex. For the most part, the two are identified...

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