Paper

Structure, System, and Source of Vedic Eleven- and Twelve-Syllable Lines

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Abstract

In this paper, I propose a formal analysis of the eleven- and twelve-syllable lines of Vedic, with a glance at Greek lyric meter and a look at Greco-Aryan. Based on the higher incidence of word-end, as well as surface hiatus patterns and clitic placement, in certain positions of verse-final pādas, the Vedic eleven- and twelve-syllable lines can be described as an octosyllable and enneasyllable, respectively, expanded by a bacchiac or amphibrach; these subdivide into [2|3][3|3] and [2|3][3|4]. These parses are consistent with the ternary podic analysis of native metrical tradition (Piṅgala). The positions especially of medial feet permit substitutions of heavy syllables for light and vice versa, to such an extent that mismatched weights became almost de rigueur. The eight-, eleven-, and twelve-syllable lines can thus be represented by related tree structures. Greek furnishes comparable eleven- and twelve-syllable lines (glyconics and hipponacteans with internal “dactylic” expansion). The proposed representations of the major Vedic pāda types add a vertical dimension to horizontal comparison and reconstruction of the Indo-European system.

Keywords: meter, Vedic, metrics, Sanskrit, Prosody

How to Cite:

Mercado, A. O., (2025) “Structure, System, and Source of Vedic Eleven- and Twelve-Syllable Lines”, Proceedings of the Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference 35(1): 6, 99-123. doi: https://doi.org/10.5070/J5.54044