30 Definitions of final elements in words

The next couple of sutras assign names to certain elements in words.

1.1.64 aco’ ntyādi ti

Acah (6/1) (of the aC range of letters, i.e. vowels) antyādi (1/1) (ādi, beginning with, antya, the last) TI (1/1) (termed TI)

 Vŗtti, paraphrase:

Acām (of the aC, i.e. vowels) sannivişţānām (? Of the entered) yo (yah) antyo (antyah) (which is the final, last) aC tadādi (that beginning with) śabdarūpam (word form) Ți samjñam (element called Ți) bhavati (is).

“That part of an item which begins with its last vowel (aC) is termed  Ți” (Sharma).

“The final portion of a word, beginning with the last among the vowels in the word, is called Ți” (Vasu).

This is therefore a technical definition, rather than a concept: it is a shorthand way of referring to the last segment of any word that starting from the last vowel (aC). The term Ți is an artificial creation, but is indicative of the last vowel; the Ț is an indicator, while the i can be seen as standing in for all vowels aC (one supposes it could also have been called by some other code like Ța or Ģu, but perhaps the grammarians chose Ți as it mimics the common verb ending –ti). The term Ți is used in other rules which prescribe modifications in the last vowel-segment, e.g. change of –ti or –i in a transitive, active (parasmaipada) verb form to –te or –e in the intransitive or reflexive (ātmanepada form,  bhavati versus vartate (is, exists): 3.4.79 Țit ātmanepadānām Ţere.

Incidentally, it is to be noted that even a single-letter word can have a final vowel-segment; this is an application of

1.1.21 ādi-antyavad (-vat) ekasminn (‘in a single(eka)-element, the element may be like (vat) a head (ādi) or a final (antya’).

If the previous sutra gives a technical name to the last vowel-initial segment, the next sutra defines another segment, this time the letter or element just before the final letter:

1.1.65 alo’ntyāt pūrva upadhā

Alah (5/1) antyāt (5/1) pūrva (1/1) upadhā (1/1)

As can be seen from the word parsing above, the first two are in the fifth case (ablative, ‘from’). The first noun aL refers to all the letters in the alphabet, or rather, since it is in singular number, any letter; the second word antyāt (‘last’) is also in ythe ablative, and can be taken as a qualifier, giving the sense of ‘from the last letter’.

Vŗtti (paraphrase):

Dhātvādau varņa-samudāye (in the group of letters, sounds) antyād (antyāt, 5/1) (from the end) alah (5/1) (from the letter, sound, aL) pūrvo (pūrvah) (prior, before) yo (yah) varņah (which letter, sound) so (sah) (that) alopadhā- (aLa upadhā-) (letter, aL) upadhā- samjño (samjñah) (upadhā – term) bhavati (is, constitutes).

“The sound (aL) which precedes the final sound of an item is called upadhā ‘penultimate sound’“ (Sharma).

“The letter immediately preceding the last letter of a word is called the penultimate” (Vasu).

Once again, the term upadhā is a coined name, but a different type from the Ți of the previous sutra in that it is not a marker or labelled term; upadhā is a noun, and may possibly stand for some meaning. The particle upa- denotes a sub-class of its type, dhā may be linked to the verbal root which means ‘to bear, hold’, so that there is a sense of something sub-ordinate, hence pen-ultimate, in contrast to the previous sutra which talked of the ultimate or last, antya. The need to define the penultimate sound will be met with in various other rules (of substitution or elision), such as 7.2.116 ata  upadhāyāh, which directs the replacement of short by long a in pac+aka (Sharma, II:67).