A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India v1.c6.4

v1.c6.4

§ 49. Positional changes follow the general principle which rules all the languages of the Indo-European family, and which has been thus concisely stated by Grimm: "Initial consonants retain the grade of each organ in the purest and truest way, medial consonants have a tendency to soften, finals to harden."¹ By the expression "grade" must be understood the two classes of tenues and mediæ; and it is thus laid down as a rule that tenues *k, p, t*, etc., in the middle of a word have a tendency to soften into their corresponding mediæ *g, b, d*; while medial *g, b, d*, at the end of a word have a propensity to harden into *k, p, t*. In the Indian languages the rule holds good in the main, and although a great variety of modifications is observable, they can all be traced by careful examination to the operation of this law, either in the exact method stated above, or in the still more advanced developments of it.