I have presented examples of both SOI conflict and DOI conflict in chapters 2, 3 and 4, of this thesis. Instead of focusing on only those steps that involve conflict, I have performed entire derivations, right from the first step to the last one – drawing diagrams for each step where two or more rules are simultaneously applicable. Before closing this chapter, I must discuss the process through which I conducted my searches for examples, the rationale behind the choice of these examples and also the distributional patterns I noticed in this process.
I performed numerous derivations from the Laghusiddhāntakaumudī and chose those which involve examples of conflict. Having studied the various prakaraṇas ‘chapters’ of this text, namely those on sandhi, subanta, taddhitānta, samāsa, tiṅanta and kr̥danta, I have selected a diverse and representative set of examples to the best of my abilities. In order to avoid redundancy, I have excluded those examples which are only superficially different from those included in this thesis.
To show that my method can tackle all kinds of conflicts in various derivational contexts, I have tried to strike a balance:
(i) between short derivations which involve only two or three steps and fewer cases of same step interaction, and long ones which involve many steps and several cases of same step interaction;
(ii) between simple examples which help the reader gain conceptual clarity and complex ones which demonstrate the potency of my solution; and
(iii) between examples which have been extensively discussed in traditional literature and examples which I have newly spotted during my research.
To underscore the far-reaching impact of my research:
(i) I have given precedence to derivations which involve popular, broad, general and widely applicable rules, whilst also ensuring the inclusion of derivations which involve rarely applicable and highly specific rules.
(ii) I have prioritized the exposition of those examples which highlight the contrast between my method and the traditional method.
(iii) I have paid special attention to certain challenging examples discussed in the Mahābhāṣya, the Kāśikā, Cardona (1970), Kiparsky (1982), Pataskar (1985), Bronkhorst (2004), Joshi and
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Kiparsky (2005) etc., with the aim of showing that my method is singlehandedly able to overcome a wide variety of problems associated with this topic. In Appendix D, I provide more information on the examples which are present in some of these sources and have also been discussed by me.