Vedic Metre in its Historical Development c12.s2.7

c12.s2.7

164. The conclusions reached in the preceding sections are generally confirmed by a close examination of the statistics of the use of words and forms of the different groups. Thus the use of the forms included in § 158 differs only slightly from that of ordinary long final vowels: the forms included in § 159 appear much more frequently, but still only occasionally, in the positions which favour short quantity. The adverbs named in §§ 160, 161 are found in all positions, but several shew a preference for those that favour short quantity. All the remaining forms in their general use agree with those that have short final vowels: yet there remains a substantial difference, which indicates that ‘protraction’ is not a mere theory of an editor, but corresponds to some special characteristic of the forms concerned.