hal sandhi

hal sandhi is the general name for sandhi changes where the first sound is a consonant. Many of the rules of hal sandhi fall in a special section of the Aṣṭādhyāyī that applies rules in an unusual way.

A special section of the Aṣṭādhyāyī

Starting with rule 8.2.2 of the Aṣṭādhyāyī, all rules are applied strictly in order. Most of the hal sandhi rules are in this section.

To understand why this section is so unusual, let's return to this example from the previous lesson:

Previously, we saw that two different rules could apply to this example. We could either convert ī to a semivowel y:

Or we could combine ī and the following i into a single vowel ī:

Between these two rules, we always choose 6.1.101 instead of the earlier rule 6.1.77. So, these rules are not applied in order. Some other deeper principle is at work.

What is that deeper principle? The answer to that question is surprisingly deep. But s a simple rule of thumb, we should generally prefer to use the rules that appear later in the Aṣṭādhyāyī.

The rules in our special section, however, don't work like that. As we mentioned above, all of the rules from 8.2.2 onward are applied strictly in order. We'll explain the specific reasons for this a few lessons from now.

Rules that use the anusvāra

hal sandhi is much more extensive than ac sandhi, and there is no simple picture of it we can provide. Instead, we will look at some of the sandhi changes that create or use the anusvāra.

We have this adhikāra rule from before:

And we also have this new adhikāra:

The next rule inherits the term hali (“when a consonant follows”) from a prior rule:

These rules give rise to the anusvāra in various contexts:

The scope of 8.1.16 (padasya) ends at rule 8.3.55. Later, we have:

yay includes all consonants except for the sibilants (ś, ṣ, s, h). So the following changes are mandatory, by 8.4.58:

And the following changes are optional, by 8.4.59:

There are two ideas worth noting here. First, 8.4.59 is the first rule we've seen where we can choose whether to apply the rule or not. Many rules in the Aṣṭādhyāyī are optional, though certain choices do tend to become conventions over time.

Second, notice how the word sambhava is treated by these rules. Since we must apply these rules in order, we have a derivation like this, where saṃbhava is first changed by rule 8.3.23:

and then converted back to its original form by rule 8.4.58:

This kind of behavior is not uncommon in this section of the Aṣṭādhyāyī.

Review

The other sandhi rules follow the same principles we've seen already. Studying more sandhi rules might be interesting for its own sake, but it won't teach us anything fundamental about the Pāṇinian system.

So, this is a good time for us to consolidate our knowledge. Now that we've seen some concrete examples of different systems and rules within the Ashtadhyayi, let's step back and consider the system as a whole. Once we've done that, we'll be ready to explore it in full.