The need for an affix signifying a shift-meaning in nominal derivation: towards a Sanskrit of non-native speakers

The paper starts from a specific problem of textual criticism related to the Mahābhārata, that is in the Poona Critical Edition the nominal stem pañcāla-, denoting an important warrior-tribe emerging in the post-Ṛgvedic Indo-Aryan North of India, only occurs once, while there are 545 occurrences of pāñcāla-. Nonetheless the varia lectio (pañcāla-) matches a specific derivational rule of Panini's grammar according to which the short vowel form should convey «the derivative sense of a choronym instead of that of an ethnonym». The present research finds in the pathways of meaning shift that lead to a polysemy of the variant readings pañcālāḥ and pāñcālāḥ of the plural masculine, used both as an ethnonym and as a choronym, a trigger of change recognisable in the Sanskrit of non-native speakers.