Self-Assessment Questions and Possible Answers

1. What is Vaikŗtadhvani?

Ans.: Assume a situation where the listener doesn’t know the word ‘ghata’ but listens the sound-units from the speaker in a sequential order; ‘gha’, ‘a’, ‘ta’. The sound units produced by the movement of vocal organs at the time of utterance is called vaikŗtadhvani (nāda). It is characterized by the intonation, tempo, and pitch, which are peculiar to each speaker.



2. . Explain briefly about ‘Vaikhari’.

Ans.: Vaikhari is the verbal stage, where the listener hears the sounds in exact form as the speaker uttered it. At this stage, sphota is differentiated from the words, and is sounded by the speaker.



3. What is Vŗtti?

Ans.: According to Bhartŗhari, “the relation between a word and its meaning is called vŗtti or ‘designatory function’”. Vŗtti is of two kinds.

1. Sakti or primary meaning
2. Lakshana or secondary meaning

Sakti describes about the lexical meaning of the word whereas 'lakshana' delineates the metaphorical meaning of the word.