PHONOLOGY 97 the immediate vicinity that an Indo-European language has developed such sounds, and since it may be safely assumed that an early form of Dra vidian possessing such sounds was spoken over large portions of India prior to the advent of the Aryans, the influence of Dravidian may be held to be responsible to some extent for their emergence. At the same time, in native Indo-Aryan words they are explicable entirely out of the com- binatory changes that affected certain consonant groups. Most of these have been mentioned and can be classified quite simply : (i) Originally dental t, th became cerebral when preceded by 5 (Aryan s) which in this position may either rep- resent IE s (§9), or be a modification of Aryan palatals s, z (>Skt. j : IE k t g) : vrsti - ' rain ' {vrs- : cf. Gk. epoq, itpaq ' dew Ir. frass ‘ rain shower '), visit ' wishes ' (vas-, cf. Hitt. wekzi ), dstrd ‘ goad 1 (aj - * to drive * : Lat. ago , etc.) ; (2) Origin- ally dental d } dh , became cerebral when preceded by z (Aryan z of the same twofold origin as s) ; since in this case the sibilant was elided the resulting cerebrals d , dh (l, Ih in the Rgveda) came to stand alone in intervocalic position : exx. nldd-, iidhd-, etc., see above ; (3) The occlusion of the first part of the group ss (which may be for s + s or s + s) produced ts ; finally the t came to stand alone, the simplification of the consonant group in this position {dvit, vit , above), while intervocalically the group de- veloped further to ks ; (4) Originally dental n became cerebral n under wider conditions, namely when preceded in the same word by s y r or r, except when a palatal or dental intervened : k dr ana- * cause etc. In addition to these rules by which cerebrals developed there are others which have been more controversial, but which can now be regarded as established. A notable case is the change of IE / followed by dental to cerebral, commonly referred to as Fortunatov's law. Though long opposed, this rule is to be accepted. Examples of this phonetic change are as follows: pata- 'cloth' <*palta- : Arm. (<Ir.) pariah 'veil', Npers. pardah, OSlav. platino ' linen cloth etc. ; patala- ' fold, layer, stratum puta- 1 fold, thing folded ’ <*paltala- } *pulta-: cf. the IE root pel - ' to fold ' in Gk. SittAos- ' twofold Lat. duplus , duplex , Eng. fold, etc.; sphatika - * crystal sphuta- 'clear 1 : cf. the IE root sp(h)el- 1 to be bright ’ appearing in Sanskrit also in sphul-jsphur- r to glitter sphulinga - ' spark ' ; hdtaka - 'gold': OS 1 . zlato , Russ, zoloto ; jathdra- 'belly': Goth.
