Sandhi
Hoysaḷa-style sculpture of
Gaṇēśa, lord of obstacles,
Haḷēbīḍu (Halebid)
Introductory theoretical remarks
The written word is a graphic representation of the spoken word; this
graphic representation does not reflect all the possible, sometimes very
subtle, differences in pronunciation that occur in actual speech. A per-
son can be recognized by peculiarities of purely personal pronunciation
that cannot be written (this is how one can recognize a person’s voice
on the telephone, for instance). In the speech of every person, the oc-
currence of sequences of certain speech sounds can lead to changes in
those sounds or in those sequences of sounds, which makes the pro-
nunciation of the sentences in which they occur easier.
Some of these changes are so commonly accepted within the speech
community that they are reflected in writing. This happens, for in-
stance, when the English sequence I am becomes I’m. The apostrophe
is a conventional sign in English spelling to indicate that one of several
possible euphonic combinations (in this particular case: elision) has
occurred. This can occur in practically all languages that are written in
a script that reflects pronunciation, whether that script is an alphabet,
as is the case with English, or an abugida, as with Kannada and almost
all the other languages of India.
254 A Manual of Modern Kannada
In Sanskrit, the foremost classical language of India, this phenom-
enon is so prominent that the Sanskrit word for it, sandhi, has been
adopted also by Western linguists to denote the phenomenon of eu-
phonic combination in any language. In several languages, euphonic
combination has been codified in the form of grammatical rules. For
instance, in French, nobody writes ‘the school’ as *la école. When the
word école is preceded by the definite article la, the final vowel of the
article is elided (and replaced in writing by an apostrophe, the spelling
convention which English also adopted): l’école. This simple kind of
sandhi is called, in Kannada grammatical terminology, lōpasaṃdhi or
‘sandhi [characterized by] loss’. In some languages there is no such
indication as an apostrophe, as in the case of Portuguese, where, for
instance, the word sequences de and o, or de and a (‘of the’, mascu-
line and feminine singular respectively) melt together to do and da.
Similarly, there are no special elision markers in Indian scripts. 1
In Kannada there are two sets of sandhi rules: (a) indigenous Kan-
nada rules, (b) rules that apply to loanwords from Sanskrit. The rules
of Sanskrit sandhi, which apply only to compound words that are bor-
rowed from Sanskrit and to neologisms that are based on Sanskrit el-
ements, are complicated and many, and they are best learnt from a
book on Sanskrit grammar. In Kannada they are relevant only for
understanding why certain changes occur within Sanskrit compound
words (e.g., why manas and vṛtti together form manōvṛtti, aṃtaḥ and
rāṣṭrīya become aṃtārāṣṭrīya ‘international’ 2, graṃtha and ālaya be-
come graṃthālaya ‘library’, etc.), but the beginning learner need not
know all the underlying rules of Sanskrit sandhi, just as a learner of
English need not understand the corresponding Latin rules of euphonic
combination that modify the common prefix in the English words con-
duct, comfort and corrupt.
In modern Kannada, the rules of sandhi are not consistently ap-
plied but are rather considered to be something optional. 3 This makes
the occurrence of sandhi quite unpredictable and largely a matter of
regional and personal preference. All the forms of sandhi that are de-
scribed below occur frequently in writing (and still more so in speech),
therefore the learner must be aware of the phenomenon and know the
rules, so that he can recognize the forms of the words that may become
partly hidden because of sandhi. 4
Sandhi 255
Kannada sandhi
There are three kinds of Kannada sandhi: lōpasaṃdhi, āgamasaṃdhi and
ādēśasaṃdhi.
Lōpasaṃdhi
‘Sandhi by loss’, or elision, occurs when the short final vowel of a word
is elided due to the following word beginning with a vowel. This hap-
pens particularly often when that short final vowel is u, but it also
commonly occurs with e or i, and it may also occur with a final a when
this is not considered an essential part of the word (for instance, when
it is the vowel of the genitive suffix – see below).
This type of sandhi is extremely common, and especially in the
combinations āgi + a form of the verb ‘to be’ (either a form of iru, or
the negativeilla as well as alla) and alli / illi (alli also as the ending of
the locative case) + a form of ‘to be’, one sees practically nothing else
in writing.
avaru + ū avarū they too
avaru + ā avarā they?
hōguvudu + illa hōguvudilla will not go
cennāgi + illa cennāgilla is not nice
nānu + alla nānalla not me
nīvu + allade nīvallade besides you
māḍalu + illa māḍalilla did not do
hāge + illa hāgilla not so
illi + ide illide it is here
Lōpasaṃdhi is also seen where the final a of the genitive is elided before
a following vowel:
haṇada āse haṇadāse hankering after
money
256 A Manual of Modern Kannada
adhikārada āse adhikāradāse hankering after
authority
pustakada aṃgaḍi pustakadaṃgaḍi bookshop (‘shop of
book’)
The same occurs in the formation of the locative case (which is actually
a genitive + alli) and with the postposition oḷage:
maneya + alli maneyalli in the house
maneya + oḷage maneyoḷage inside the house
It should be noted that in the modern language, particularly in prose,
this type of sandhi is considered optional, not compulsory when the two
successive words are felt to be two distinct, independent words in their
own right: for instance, haṇada āse and haṇadāse are both permissible,
but the former is nowadays seen more often. (However, see the above
note about the forms of iru, āgu, illa and alla at the end of sentences.)
The final e of the dative also disappears before a following vowel:
manege + ā manegā home? / to the house?
yārige + ō yārigō to someone
nanage + ū nanagū also to me
It is not possible for any dictionary or grammar to include all the possi-
ble combinations that may occur through such applications of sandhi.
However, the agglutinative structure of the Dravidian languages makes
it easy to detect such occurrences. If, for instance, one does not recog-
nize the expression pustakadaṃgaḍi, one simply takes a dictionary and
looks for words that begin with the same sequence of letters. When one
has found pustaka ‘book’ and realizes that this, of course, is a neuter
noun that is declined after the pattern of mara etc., then one realizes
that the genitive of pustaka is pustakada, and the d in the middle of the
compound word is explained. Then one looks for the next member of
the compound, aṃgaḍi, and one understands what the compound word
means.
Lopasaṃdhi is extremely common before forms of the verbs iru
and āgu towards the end of sentences and clauses: alli tuṃba janarid-
dāre (alli tuṃba janaru iddāre), bīdiyalli hasugaḷive (bīdiyalli hasugaḷu
Sandhi 257
ive), hasividdare cennāgilla (hasivu iddare cennāgi illa), etc., and always
occurs when the extremely frequently used gerund āgi is followed by
a form of iru: cennāgide (cennāgi ide), cennāgiddēne (cennāgi iddēne),
suṃdaravāgide (suṃdaravāgi ide), etc.
Āgamasaṃdhi
‘Sandhi by coming’ (i.e., by arrival of an additional consonant) occurs
when a connecting consonant is inserted between two vowels. Usually,
if the preceding vowel is i, e or ai, the connecting consonant will be y;
otherwise, it will be v.
mara + alla maravalla is not a tree
gōdi + illa gōdiyilla there is no wheat
illi + ū illiyū also here
huḍugi + ū huḍugiyū also a girl
vidyārthi + ā vidyārthiyā? a student?
pustaka + ā pustakavā? a book?
In some cases, a different historical consonant, which has been lost in
a later stage of development of the language, may reappear (compare,
for instance, the French aime-t-il?, where an original Latin t,which dis-
appeared from the third person singular in French, has somehow been
preserved subconsciously in the collective memory of the speech com-
munity and returns before a following vowel). This occurs in Kannada
when, for instance, an l appears when one of the suffixes ā, ū or ē is
added to a word in the ablative case, or to the time-indicating adverbs
īga / āga / yāvāga. Similarly, an n is always added after a masculine
word ending in a before the case endings, because originally, in Old
Kannada, such words did not end in a, but in an.
manuṣya + ige manuṣyanige to a man
huḍuga + a huḍugana of a boy
adu huḍuga + alla adu huḍuganalla that is not a boy
258 A Manual of Modern Kannada
alliṃda + ē alliṃdalē from there
(emphasized)
elliṃda + ādarū elliṃdalādarū from anywhere
elliṃda + ō elliṃdalō from somewhere
īga + ū īgalū also now
yāvāga + ū yāvagalū always
yāvāga + ādarū yāvagalādarū any time
yāvāga + ō yāvagalō some time
īga + ā īgalā now?
Sometimes we see that more than one type of sandhi is acceptable:
for instance, when a locative ending in alli is followed by one of the
enclitics ā, ē, ō, ū:
maneyalliyū also in the house (āgamasaṃdhi)
maneyallū also in the house (lōpasaṃdhi)
Āgamasaṃdhi is extremely common before forms of the verbs iru and
āgu towards the end of sentences and clauses: avara hattira haṇavide
(avara hattira haṇa ide), adu kaṣṭavāguttade (adu kaṣṭa āguttade), kaṣṭavā-
dare bēḍa (kaṣṭa ādare bēḍa), etc.
A special kind of āgamasaṃdhi is found after the case ending for the
ablative case and after the adverbs of time īga, āga and yāvāga: when
any of the suffixes ā, ē, ō, ū is added, the consonant l is inserted between
the inflected word and the suffix, resulting in combinations such as
adariṃdalē, īgalū, yāvāgalō etc. This is the return of a historical final
consonant that was lost in the period after the twelfth century, when
the language no longer tolerated words that ended in a consonant. 5
Ādēśasaṃdhi
‘Sandhi by substitution’ occurs when the second of two words that
combine begins with an unvoiced plosive consonant (k, p, t). This
consonant is changed to the voiced consonant of the same varga (g,
b, d). Most of the words in which this type of sandhi occurs are old
compounds.
Sandhi 259
maḷe + kāla maḷegāla monsoon, rainy
season
suḍu + kāḍu suḍugāḍu cremation ground
(‘burning area’)
heṇṇu + kūsu heṃgūsu baby girl (‘female
baby’)
beṭṭa + tāvare beṭṭadāvare mountain lotus
nil[lu] + tāṇa nildāṇa station (‘standing
place’)
kaṇṇu + pani kaṃbani tears (‘eye water’)
Notes
1
The one exception is the so-called avagraha that is used in writing Sanskrit
and indicates an elided initial short a, but its use, however common nowadays,
is not compulsory.
2
This is one of the most frequently misspelled words, not only in Kannada,
but in all languages across India. Often one finds wrong spellings such as
aṃtarrāṣṭrīya and aṃtararāṣṭrīya.
3
Cf. Kittel 1903: 170 (§213): “It occurs in the ancient, medieval and modern
dialect, especially in poetry. The colloquial dialect and modern prose writings
often disregard it.”
4
Similarly, when learning English, a learner must learn that it’s means the
same as it is, won’t the same as will not, etc. etc.
5
This is comparable with the return of a historical t in French in the case of
inversion of subject and verb: il a, but a-t-il?
