[ vi ]
nents, is not always analysable into these components by the beginner. The coalescence takes place in all languages, and offers one of the chief difficulties to the foreigner; bnt in other languages, for the most part, no attempt is made to express in writing the spoken sound. Thus the Frenchman says le'pti, but he always writes le petit. * In Samskrit writing the spoken sound is imitated. The detailed rules on this subject, which two sounds mixing make up which third sound, are many. The generalised rule may be stated to be that if the student will pronounce the two letters correctly and quickly in succession, the resultant sound, compelled by his own vocal apparatus will also be in accordance with the grammati . cal rule on the subject. Briefly, the grammatical rule is only a description of the physiological fact. This appears not only in the case of actual coalescence, but in the influence of one sound On another separated from it by one or more intervening ones. Thus, according to the ordinary rule the word राम declined into its instrumental form, should be रामेन, but after pronouncing the cerebral r in its exact Samskrit shade. the vocal apparatus of the Indian finds it difficult to adjust itself rapidly to pro nounce the dental-nasal n न properly, even when another labial nasal m 2, intervenes ; it turns more readily to the allied and nearer cerebral-nasal n, ण, and the result is रामेण.
Examples
(a.) Conjunction of similar vowels: whether both short or both long, or one short and one long, the resultant is the long vowel.
कृतेन अर्थः = कृतेनार्थः ( iii. 18. ), आत्मना आत्मानं = eत्मनात्मानं ( vi. 5. ), च अपरे = चापरे (iv. 27.); and so with इ, उ, कः, उत्क्रा-
