Phonological overgeneration in paninian system

Abstract

In this paper an attempt is made to study the problem of over generation that is caused by the application of the system of Panini. The system of Panini is made up of certain rules stated by him and his commentators namely, Katyayana and Patanjali. These rules are supposed to produce the forms that are used in the language, i.e. Sanskrit. However, sometimes the technical application of these rules produces such forms which are not actually used in the language. In fact, sometimes it is beyond human capacities to use such forms. In the present paper two such cases dealing with the phonological over generation are studied and possible solutions are proposed to avoid the problem.