Interpreting Forms with Markers: The Morphological Approach MARIA PIERA CANDOTTI & TIZIANA PONTILLO 1. The aim of this study 1 is to take up again and offer some further reflections on the status of markers in Pāṇinian metalanguage, as can be worked out from the evidence of the Aṣṭādhyāyī and some interesting suggestions found in the Mahābhāṣya. It is principally A 1.3.9 tasya lopaḥ which governs the interpretation of forms with markers in the Aṣṭādhyāyī. This sūtra which teaches an uncondi- tioned lopa of all the elements previously defined as it (A 1.3.2–8) has more than one element that could capture scholars’ attention. First of all it resorts to the grammatical device of lopa – taught as adarśanam ‘non-perception’ in A 1.1.60 and commonly applied to phonological or morphological units of the object language – not to account for the object language itself but rather for the interpreta- tion of metalanguage. Secondly it involves no conditions, some- thing quite unusual inasmuch as this kind of rule is generally re- stricted by means of some specified left or right context. In fact to teach a non-perception of an element without conditions amounts to denying the non-perceived element any reality in the object lan- guage. 1 This paper is the result of a joint work and it is very hard to clearly deter- mine the contribution of each of us; thus for convenience purposes alone we have ascribed sections 1.1, 2, 3.2, 3.4, 4 to Maria Piera Candotti and sections 1, 3, 3.1, 3.3 and 5 to Tiziana Pontillo.