โ Scribed by L. A. Schwarzschild
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Complaints have sometimes been made that the so-called "sporadic changes" which include assimilation, dissimilation, metathesis and epenthesis have not been studied as thoroughly as the regular sound-changes? This applies as much to Middle Indo-Aryan as to other languages. The Prakrit grammarians have simply listed such sporadic changes as exceptions to the general rules, and the modern grammars have taken over their lists with some additional examples. This is true for instance of the cases of sporadic change of the vowel u which are listed by Pischel. 2 This article represents an attempt at a further analysis of some of the problems involved.
While Pischel simply lists the cases where the Sanskrit vowel u has been replaced by other vowels in Middle Indo-Aryan, some more recent grammars make confusing statements to the effect that u becomes a "by dissimilation or assimilation". Some of this confusion comes from a failure to distinguish between two different processes, dissimilation and differentiation. Differentiation occurs when two similar sounds are in immediate contact and the speakers distinguish between the two sounds, thereby changing the phonetic characteristics of one of them. Meillet 3 and Grammont 4 consider differentiation as the reverse of assimilation: differentiation is a means by which assimilation is avoided and it helps to preserve the identity of the word which might be lost if assimilation took place. On the other hand dissimilation occurs when two identical sounds are close together, yet not in contact, and there is a tendency to avoid the repetition of the one sound. This might be considered as a more truly 1 For the most recent comments on this subject see R. R. Posner, Consonantal Dissimilation in the Romance Languages (= Publications of the Philological Society, XIX) (London, 1961), p. 2. R. Pischel, Grammatik der Prakrit-Sprachen (Strassburg, 1900), w 123-4 and w 126. 3 A. Meillet, "De la diff6renciation des phon6mes", MSL, XII, p. 14ft. 4 M. Grammont, Trait~ de Phondtique (3rd. ed. Paris, 1946), p. 229ff.
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