Editing Patanjali (section)

==== Sphota ====
Patanjali also defines an early notion of [[sphota]], which would be elaborated considerably by later Sanskrit linguists like [[Bhartrihari]].  In Patanjali, a ''sphoTa'' (from ''sphuT'', spurt/burst) is the invariant quality of speech.  The noisy element (''dhvani'', audible part) can be long or short, but the sphoTa remains unaffected by individual speaker differences. Thus, a single letter or 'sound' (''varNa'') such as ''k'', ''p'' or ''a'' is an abstraction, distinct from variants produced in actual enunciation.<ref name=watw>{{cite book | title =        Bimal Krishna Matilal | author =        The word and the world: India's contribution to the study of language | publisher =        Oxford | year =        1990 | isbn =        978-0-19-562515-8 | url-access =        registration | url =        https://archive.org/details/wordworldindiasc0000mati }}</ref> This concept has been linked to the modern notion of [[phoneme]], the minimum distinction that defines semantically distinct sounds.  Thus a phoneme is an abstraction for a range of sounds.  However, in later writings, especially in Bhartrihari (6th century CE), the notion of ''sphoTa'' changes to become more of a mental state, preceding the actual utterance, akin to the [[Lemma (psycholinguistics)|lemma]].

Patañjali's writings also elaborate some principles of [[morphology (linguistics)|morphology]] (''prakriyā'').  In the context of elaborating on Pāṇini's aphorisms, he also discusses [[Kātyāyana]]'s commentary, which are also aphoristic and ''sūtra''-like; in the later tradition, these were transmitted as embedded in Patañjali's discussion.  In general, he defends many positions of Pāṇini which were interpreted somewhat differently in Katyayana.