Accented Clitics in the Ṛgveda. (16th April 2013)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Lowe, John
• Is Part Of: Transactions of the Philological Society. Volume 112:Number 1(2014)
• Page Start: 5
• Page End: 43
• Publication Date: 2013-04-16
• Subjects: Philology -- Periodicals; 400
• DOI: 10.1111/1467-968X.12013
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0079-1636

Abstract

<abstract abstract-type="main" id="trps12013-abs-0001"> <title>Abstract</title> <p>I discuss the most controversial and widely studied part of the Ṛgvedic Sanskrit clause, the clause‐initial string. I focus in particular on a few sets of words — relative pronouns, demonstrative pronouns and preverbs — arguing that their treatment in previous analyses requires revision. This is because they can be, in some contexts, clitics. I argue that clisis must be defined in primarily syntactic rather than prosodic terms: Ṛgvedic clitics all share certain syntactic properties, but they do not all necessarily share any single prosodic property (such as lack of lexical accent). I subsequently examine the consequences of this reanalysis of pronouns and preverbs in the clause‐initial string for syntactic accounts of Ṛgvedic word order.</p> </abstract>