> Sanskrit semantics is intentionally loosely defined
I have studied Sanskrit literature extensively and do not know what this means.
> people have interpreted these mnemonics in different ways
Your implication is that people interpreted these mnemonics differently due to misunderstanding these rules. The mainstream scholarly response is rather some version of प्रयोगशरणा वैयाकरणाः ("grammarians take refuge in usage"), i.e. that different grammarians working in different eras and time periods were forced to reconcile the Ashtadhyayi as a fixed document with the slight divergence in contemporary usage -- that is, that they followed usage and intentionally reinterpreted rules to fit usage.
For an example of how this accounts for Patanjali's readings in particular, see [1].
I have studied Sanskrit literature extensively and do not know what this means.
> people have interpreted these mnemonics in different ways
Your implication is that people interpreted these mnemonics differently due to misunderstanding these rules. The mainstream scholarly response is rather some version of प्रयोगशरणा वैयाकरणाः ("grammarians take refuge in usage"), i.e. that different grammarians working in different eras and time periods were forced to reconcile the Ashtadhyayi as a fixed document with the slight divergence in contemporary usage -- that is, that they followed usage and intentionally reinterpreted rules to fit usage.
For an example of how this accounts for Patanjali's readings in particular, see [1].
[1]: https://web.stanford.edu/~kiparsky/Papers/markers.pdf