Sound Change or Analogy? Palatalisation in the Plural Paradigm of the Khotanese i-declension

Abstract

The article deals with the origin of palatalisation in the plural paradigm of the Khotanese i-declension. According to the common view, palatalisation resulted from regular sound change only in the nominative-accusative plural, with the etymological form of the endings remaining not-palatalised in the rest of the plural inflection. Subsequently, there emerged a tendency for the palatalised allomorph to become generalised and extend across the paradigm. However, a thorough examination of older and later Old Khotanese manuscripts challenges this perspective, revealing no evidence of original allomorphy between the palatalised and non-palatalised stem variants in the plural. This study demonstrates that palatalisation did not originate from analogical levellings but rather arose from regular sound change. Additionally, the article draws a comparison between the i-declension plural paradigm and the inflection of most numerals greater than ‘three’, which exhibit palatalisation in all case forms except for the nominative-accusative.