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The Phonetics of the Independent Svarita in Vedic

Although from the beginning of Indo-European studies the Vedic accentual system has been thoroughly investigated and its importance for the reconstruction of Proto Indo-European accent long recognized, the phonetics of Vedic accent have received much less attention. The aim of this paper is to help fill this gap, building on previous work from various grammatical sources, from antiquity to modern times (including the descriptions in Pāṇini, the Prātiśākhyas, and the treatments in Haug 1873:21–107, Whitney 1879:27–32, AiG I:281–97, Macdonell 1910:76–82, and Allen 1953:87–94). I will focus on the phonetics of the “independent svarita,” which in my opinion has been the least satisfactorily described accent in Vedic accentology. I will first propose a new terminological distinction between pitch accents on particular syllables and a “global” pitch trajectory that spans several syllables and constitutes the phonological accent in Vedic. This crucial step will allow me to define the phonetic differences between elements of different pitch accents in Vedic. Based primarily on data from the Sāmaveda, I will propose a new explanation for the phonetics of the independent svarita. Essentially, I will argue that the independent svarita is in all respects identical to the udātta with the same pitch targets, the only difference being in timing—the independent svarita is a shorter version of the udātta. This new explanation not only brings new insights into the phonetics of Vedic accents, but also has the potential to explain other peculiarities of the accentual system, especially in the domain of accentual sandhi. The structure of the paper is as follows: in §2 I present well-known facts about the phonetics of Vedic accent and propose a new terminological distinction. In §3 I discuss previous accounts of the phonetics of the independent svarita. In §4 I point to new evidence and propose a new explanation for the independent