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A New Look At Brugmann's Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

T. Burrow
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Extract

In BSOAS, XXXIV, 3,1971, 546 I suggested the possibility that the development of Indo-European o to ā in Sanskrit, which, according to Brugmann's well-known and much contested theory, had been held to take place only in open syllables, may in fact have taken place in other environments also,. namely before consonant groups. The proposal was made in view of certain word equations quoted in connexion with the development of spontaneous cerebrals in Sanskrit, notably between Skt. κāṇḍα- ‘section between two joints, phalanx’ and bhāṇḍα-’ furniture, utensils, movable property’ on the one hand, and Gk.

Type
Research Article
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , February 1975 , pp. 55 - 80
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1975

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References

1 Brugmann's law is declared to be false by Hauschild, R. in Thumb-Hauschild, Handbuch des Sanskrit, 3. Aufl., I, 1, Heidelberg, 1958, 220Google Scholar ff., and by Gonda, J., Old Indian, Leiden, 1971, 25 ffGoogle Scholar. Szemerényi, O. in his Einführung in die vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft, Darmstadt, 1971, ignores it in the section on phonology, but it is clear from his treatment of the morphological categories involved (ef. e.g. p. 111) that he explains all such forms differently.Google Scholar On the other hand the law is supported by Kuiper, F. B. J., India antiqua (J. P. Vogel volume), Leyden, 1947, 200–1,Google Scholar and Lingua, VII, 4, 1959, 426–7,Google Scholar by Lehmann, W. P., Proto-Indo-European phonology, Austin, Texas, 1952, 13 and 30,Google Scholar and by Mayrhofer, M., Sanskrit-Grammatik, 2. Aufl., Berlin, 1965, 18: as opposed to his earlier view in KZ, LXX, 1–2,1951, 8 ff.Google Scholar

2 See for instance Wackernagel-Debrunner, , Altindische Grammatik, II, 2, 130;Google ScholarMayrhofer, M., EWA, II, 626,Google Scholar and, earlier, Schmidt, J., KZ, xxv, 1–2, 1879, 106.Google Scholar

3 In Nelson, A. (ed.), Symbolae plilologicae 0. A. Danielsson, Uppsala, 1932, 19.Google Scholar

4 Professor Sir Ralph Turner (CD1AL, no. 10074) argues that the form of the root in the Niya documents (margidavo, etc.) points to original mārgati rather than mṛgyati, but since the NW Prakrit was much under the influence of Buddhist Sanskrit the form this verb takes can be attributed to that source.

5 cf. J. Kurylowicz, L'apophonie en indo-européen, Wroclaw, 1966,156, and (on the reliability of the Avesta in distinguishing guṇa and vṛddhi diphthongs) ibid., 153–4.

6 Uhlenbeck, C. C., Kurzgefasstes etymologisches Wörterbuch der altindischen Sprache, Amsterdam, 1898–1989, 222.Google Scholar

7 A palatalized variant of this word, which would confirm the derivation from *kenako-, is probably to be seen in caṇaka- ‘chick-pea ’ (with spontaneous cerebral -ṇ-, as commonly). The colour of the chick-pea varies between yellow, light brown, reddish brown, and similar shades, which fit in very well with the meaning of this root, and it is quite natural that the chick-pea should get its name from its colour. On the chick-pea and its varieties see Watt, G., A dictionary of the economic products of India, II, Calcutta, 1889, 277.Google Scholar

8 ‘Sanskrit lexicographical notes’, in Radhakrishnan, S. and others (ed.), Felicitation volume presented to S. K. Belvalkar, Banaras, 1957, 3–11.Google Scholar

9 Wackernagel-Debrunner, , Altindische Grammatik, II, 2, 911.Google Scholar

10 cf. Śabdabhedaprakāśa, 5, 27, comm.

11 Turner, R. L., ‘Pali phāsu- and dātta-’, BSOAS, XXXVI, 2, 1973, 425.Google Scholar

12 Turner, R. L., ‘Geminates after long vowels in Indo-Aryan’, BSOAS, xxx, 1, 1967, 73–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Hoffmann, K., ‘Mārtāṇḍa und Gayomart’, Münchener Studien zur Sprachwissenschaft, 11, 1957, 85–103.Google Scholar

14 Bailey, H. W. in his introduction to the second edition of Zoroastrian problems in the ninth-century books, Oxford, 1971, p. xxxv.Google Scholar

15 cf. DED, no. 925.

16 J. Kurylowicz, L'apophonie en indo-européen; see in particular pp. 321–38.

17 But note that a farther derivative from this root appears in Pkt. olāvaa- ‘hawk, falcon’, meaning literally ‘seizer of prey’.

18 A corresponding sthāl*** fem, is recorded earlier, in AV, Br., etc.

19 cf. bata- RV (and Bailey, BSOAS, XIV, 3, 1952,422 ff.) and bāṣpa- (for which see JRAS, 1969, 2, pp. 112 ff.).

20 Kurytowicz, J., Prace filologiczne, Darmstadt, 1970, 11, 209 ff.Google Scholar

21 cf. O. Szemerényi, Einführung in die vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft, 273.

22 On these forms see Neu, Erich, KZ, LXXXVI, 2, 1972, 288–95.Google Scholar

23 On this question see O. Szemerényi, Einführung, 112 ff.