The grammar of the Sanskrit language has a complex verbal system, rich nominal declension, and extensive use of compound nouns. It was studied and codified by Sanskrit grammarians from the later Vedic period (roughly 8th century BCE), culminating in the Pāṇinian grammar of the 4th century BCE.
Grammatical tradition
Origins Sanskrit grammatical tradition (vyākaraṇa, one of the six Vedanga disciplines) began in late Vedic India and culminated in the Aṣṭādhyāyī of Pāṇini.
The oldest attested form of the Proto-Indo-Aryan language as it had evolved in the Indian subcontinent after its introduction with the arrival of the Indo-Aryans is called Vedic. By 1000 BCE, the end of the early Vedic period, a large body of Vedic hymns had been consolidated into the Ṛg·Veda, which formed the canonical basis of the Vedic religion, and was transmitted from generation to generation entirely orally.
In the course of the following centuries, as the popular speech evolved, there was rising concern among the guardians of the Vedic religion that the hymns be passed on without "corruption", which for them was vital to ensure the religious efficacy of the hymns. This led to the rise of a vigorous, sophisticated grammatical tradition involving the study of linguistic analysis, in particular phonetics alongside grammar, the high point of which was Pāṇini's stated work, which eclipsed all others before him.Burrow, §2.1.Coulson, p. xv.Whitney, p. xii.
Pāṇini Pāṇini's Aṣṭādhyāyī, a prescriptive and generative grammar with algebraic rules governing every single aspect of the language, in an era when oral composition and transmission was the norm, is staunchly embedded in that oral tradition. In order to ensure wide dissemination, Pāṇini is said to have preferred brevity over clarityWhitney, p. xiii – it can be recited end-to-end in two hours. This has led to the emergence of a great number of commentaries of his work over the centuries, which for the most part adhere to the foundations laid by Pāṇini's work.Coulson, p xvi.
After Pāṇini About a century after Pāṇini, Kātyāyana composed vārtikas (explanations) on the Pāṇinian sũtras. Patañjali, who lived three centuries after Pāṇini, wrote the Mahābhāṣya, the "Great Commentary" on the Aṣṭādhyāyī and Vārtikas. Because of these three ancient Sanskrit grammarians this grammar is called Trimuni Vyākarana.
Jayaditya and Vāmana wrote a commentary named Kāśikā in 600 CE. 's (12th century AD) commentary on Patañjali's also exerted much influence on the development of grammar, but more influential was the Rupāvatāra of Buddhist scholar Dharmakīrti which popularised simplified versions of Sanskrit grammar.
The most influential work of the Early Modern period was Siddhānta Kaumudī by (17th century). Bhaṭṭoji's disciple Varadarāja wrote three abridged versions of the original text, named Madhya Siddhānta Kaumudī, Sāra Siddhānta Kaumudī and Laghu Siddhānta Kaumudī, of which the latter is the most popular. Vāsudeva Dīkṣita wrote a commentary named Bālamanoramā on Siddhānta-Kaumudī.
European grammatical scholarship began in the 18th century with Jean François Pons and others, and culminated in the exhaustive expositions by 19th-century scholars such as Otto von Böhtlingk, William Dwight Whitney, Jacob Wackernagel and others.
Timeline The following is a timeline of notable post-Pāṇinian grammatical figures and approximate dates:Staal (1972) p. 0
Kātyāyana – 300 BCE Patañjali – 150 BCE Bhartṛhari – V CE Kāśikā – VII Śākaṭāyana – IX Kaiyaṭa – XI Hemacandra – XII Śaraṇadeva – XII Vopadeva – XIII Bhattoji-dīkṣita – XVII
Phonology
The sound system
The Sanskrit sound system can be represented in a table of place and manner of articulation:Bucknell, p. 73.Whitney, §19–79.
+ Sanskrit sounds voiceless voicedopen ḥ h a ā velar k kh g gh ṅ palatal ś c ch j jh ñ y i ī ē airetroflex ṣ ṭ ṭh ḍ ḍh ṇ r ṛ ṝ dental s t th d dh n l ḷ labial p ph b bh m v u ū ō aufricunaspaspunaspaspnasalsemivshortlongstopssimplediphthvocalicsconsonantsvowels
Pronunciation examples
The table below shows the traditional listing of the Sanskrit consonants with the nearest equivalents in English (as pronounced in General American and Received Pronunciation or wherever relevant in Indian English), French, Spanish, Russian or Polish, along with approximate IPA values.Stiehl 2011
(Further information: IPA chart (vowels and consonants) – 2015. and IPA pulmonic consonant chart with audio )
+ Sanskrit sound examples voiceless voicedopen ḥ h; Eng: ahead ṃ a ā velar k; Eng: skip kh; Eng: cow g; Eng: game gh; Eng: doghouse ṅ; Eng: ring palatal ś; similar to Eng: ship c; Eng: reach ch; Eng: cheer j; Eng: jeer jh; Eng: sledgehammer ñ; Fre: agneau, Spa: ñ, Rus: осень, Pol: jesień y; Eng: you i ī ē airetroflex ṣ; Retroflex form of ṭ; Ind Eng: stop ṭh; Ind Eng: cathouse ḍ; Ind Eng: door ḍh; Ind Eng: adhere ṇ; (NA/Irish/Scot) Eng: morning r;(NA/Irish/Scot) Eng: morning ṛ;(NA/Irish/Scot) Eng: int'r'stingdiff'r'nce ṝ dental s;Eng: same t; Fre, Spa: tomate th; Eng: tip d; Fre: dans, Spa: donde dh; Aspirated n; Eng: name l; Fre, Spa: la ḷ labial p; Eng: spin ph; Eng: pork b; Eng: cab bh; Eng: abhor m; Eng: mine v; u ū ō aufricunaspaspunaspaspnasalsemivshortlongstopssimplediphthvocalicsconsonantsvowels
It should be understood that, while the script commonly associated with Sanskrit is Devanagari, this has no particular importance. It just happens currently to be the most popular script for Sanskrit. The form of the symbols used to write Sanskrit has varied widely geographically and over time, and notably includes modern Indian scripts. What is important is that the adherence to the phonological classification of the symbols elucidated here has remained constant in Sanskrit since classical times. It should be further noted that the phonology of modern Indian languages has evolved, and the values given to Devanagari symbols in modern Indo-Aryan languages, e.g., Hindi, differ somewhat from those of Sanskrit.
Sound classes Vowels & Semivowels
The long syllabic l (ḹ) is not attested, and is only discussed by grammarians for systematic reasons. Its short counterpart ḷ occurs in a single root only, kḷp . Long syllabic r (ṝ) is also quite marginal, occurring (optionally) in the genitive plural of ṛ-stems (e.g. mātṛ, pitṛ ⇒ mātṝṇām, pitṝṇām).
i, u, ṛ, ḷ are vocalic allophones of consonantal y, v, r, l. There are thus only five invariably vocalic phonemes: a, ā, ī, ū, ṝ.Whitney, §19–30.
Visarga and anusvāra
Visarga ḥ is an allophone of r and s, and anusvara ṃ, Devanagari of any nasal, both in pausa (i.e., the nasalised vowel).
Sibilants
The exact pronunciation of the three sibilants may vary, but they are distinct phonemes. Voiced sibilants, such as z , ẓ , and ź as well as its aspirated counterpart źh , were inherited by Proto-Indo-Aryan from Proto-Indo-Iranian but lost around or after the time of the Rigveda, as evidenced due to ḷh (an aspirated retroflex lateral consonant) being metrically a cluster (that was most likely of the form ẓḍh; aspirated fricatives are exceedingly rare in any language).Whitney, §31–75.
Retroflex consonants
The retroflex consonants are somewhat marginal phonemes, often being conditioned by their phonetic environment; they do not continue a PIE series and are often ascribed by some linguists to the substratal influence of Dravidian, or spontaneous internal development from IE or other substrate languages. Loss of l from Fortunatov's law has made some free unconditioned retroflexes like PIE *bʰelsos > bhā́ṣā - bhāsa, PIE *poltos > paṭa - pati. Further solidified by Prakritic and non IA loans like Skr. *pṛthati > Pkt. paṭhati > Skt. paṭhati.
Nasals The nasals are mostly conditioned allophones of . Phonologically independent /ŋ/ occurs only marginally, e.g. in prāṅ 'directed forwards/towards' [nom. sg. masc. of an adjective], a declension of prāñc. There are some onomatopoeic words with them like ña, ṅa, ṅu and declensions like ñuṅūṣate. and are distinct phonemes (aṇu 'minute', 'atomic' [nom. sg. neutr. of an adjective] is distinctive from anu 'after', 'along').
Sandhi
Sanskrit deploys extensive phonological alternations on different linguistic levels through sandhi rules (literally, the rules of "putting together, union, connection, alliance"), similar to the English alteration of "going to" as gonna. The Sanskrit language accepts such alterations within it, but offers formal rules for the sandhi of any two words next to each other in the same sentence or linking two sentences. The external sandhi rules state that similar short vowels coalesce into a single long vowel, while dissimilar vowels form glides or undergo diphthongization. Among the consonants, most external sandhi rules recommend regressive assimilation for clarity when they are voiced. These rules ordinarily apply at compound seams and morpheme boundaries. In Vedic Sanskrit, the external sandhi rules are more variable than in Classical Sanskrit.
The internal sandhi rules are more intricate and account for the root and the canonical structure of the Sanskrit word. These rules anticipate what are now known as the Bartholomae's law and Grassmann's law. For example, states Jamison, the "voiceless, voiced, and voiced aspirated obstruents of a positional series regularly alternate with each other (p ≈ b ≈ bh; t ≈ d ≈ dh, etc.; note, however, c ≈ j ≈ h), such that, for example, a morpheme with an underlying voiced aspirate final may show alternants with all three stops under differing internal sandhi conditions". The velar series (k, g, gʰ) alternate with the palatal series (c, j, h), while the structural position of the palatal series is modified into a retroflex cluster when followed by dental. This rule creates two morphophonemically distinct series from a single palatal series.
Phonological processes A number of phonological processes have been described in detail. One of them is (lit. 'adjacent imposition'), (also known as , 'stoppage', or ). It is the incomplete articulation, or ""repressing or obscuring", of a plosive or, according to some texts, a semi-vowel (except r), which occurs before another plosive or a pause. It was described in the various Prātiśākhyas as well as the . These texts are not unanimous on the environments that trigger abhinidhana, nor on the precise classes of consonants affected.
One ancient grammarian, (in 6.12), states that only occurred when a consonant was doubled, whereas according to the text of the it was obligatory in this context but optional for plosives before another plosive of a different place of articulation. The and the agree on the observation that abhinidhana occurs only if there is a slight pause between the two consonants and not if they are pronounced jointly. Word-finally, plosives undergo abhinidhāna according to the and the . The latter text adds that final semivowels (excluding r) are also incompletely articulated. The 2.38 lists an exception: a plosive at the end of the word will not undergo and will be fully released if it is followed by a consonant whose place of articulation is further back in the mouth. The states that the consonants affected by abhinidhāna are the voiceless unaspirated plosives, the nasal consonants and the semivowels and .
Morphophonology Vowel gradation
Sanskrit inherits from Proto-Indo-European the feature of regular in-word, vowel variations known in the context of the parent language as ablaut or more generally apophony.
This feature, which can be seen in the English forms sing, sang, sung, and song, themselves a direct continuation of the PIE ablaut, is fundamental in Sanskrit both for inflexion and derivation.Fortson, §4.12.Burrow, §3.22.