TRACING VEDIC DIALECTS - People.fas.harvard.edu

grammar, and in classical Sanskrit, it results in -o '- viz. -e '-, This looks
like an "elision" of the initial a-, and is usually described thus in Western
grammars. Most Vedic texts, however, often write -o/-e a- next to -e/ '-. This
has not been a real pronunciation, however, and is nothing but a second-hand
attempt by the readctors to restore the intellegibility of the text viz. the metre.
Something like *-ai a- is to be expected as Ṛgvedic pronunciation. 233
In pre-Ṛgvedic pronunciation, the realisation of the later Vedic and Class.
-e '- still was *-ai a-, as the monophtongisation *ai > e had not yet taken
place; thus *rathai atra > rathai atra. The case of later -o a- is different: To
be expected is *-az a-, in analogy to other cases of -s before vowels (V) and
voiced consonants (vC), like -iz a- > -ir a- ; -ur vC-. (Note that this is very
old: -is > iz > ir, not > -iṣ, or older IIr. iš, in these cases).
To suppose a development -az a- > -ai a- for this early period would lead to
nom. sg. like rathe, deve, putre, name, etc. only in Abhinihita Sandhi. This
would be in competition with the normal forms in -o before voiced cons., like
aśvaz vahati > aśvo vahati. Such forms in -e are unknown from Skt., except
for a single case in RV where an older gen.sg. *sūras duhitā > sūraz duhitā >
sūra i dūhitā > sūre duhitā. The development here is one that otherwise is
found in internal Sandhi, e.g. *sasdai > sazdai > sa i dai > sede. (A similar
development, also one that took place in the post-IIr. period, namely -az +
voiced retroflex cons. > o is found in internal Sandhi: vajh-tā > vazdhā >
voḍhā).
A nominative sg.in -e (*deve, *putre), however, occurs in Eastern Middle
Indian, in Mg., AMg., the chancellary language of Aśoka, (see O.v. Hinüber,
Überblick, §296: putte, etc.); these forms could be remnants of an older
developnent as described above. One would, however, expect more cases of -e
in RV that were not understood by the redactors and left in the text of the RV
if the form was more frequent. Apparently it was not.
Forms like devo 'sti, namo'stu have to be explained differently:
If we compare the development of -as vC > -az vC, eg. *aśvaz vahati > azvau
vahati > aśvo vahati, as supposed by Allen, Sandhi, p. 39,62,71 sqq., this can
be compared to the parallel earlier or dialect development *sūraz duhitā >
sūrai d° > sūre d°. The same is found in early Vedic internal Sandhi: *sazdai
> sede, while Avestan still has perf. hazd- < *sazd-. Infact such changes are
not unheard of. Allen, p.105 sq., compares, among other cases, the example of
233 Differently, Oldenberg, Prolegomena: short -e/o a- p.447 sqq. Note, that this kind of
restitution takes place even in MSS of the Middle Ages in the corrupt Kashmir MS of PS
written in 1419 AD., see author, ZDMG VI. Suppl.Bd.
81