ar X iv : m at h / 06 07 25 0 v 1 [ m at h . C A ] 1 1 Ju l 2 00 6 PROPERTIES OF GENERALIZED UNIVARIATE HYPERGEOMETRIC FUNCTIONS

Based on Spiridonov's analysis of elliptic generalizations of the Gauss hypergeomet-ric function, we develop a common framework for 7-parameter families of generalized elliptic, hyperbolic and trigonometric univariate hypergeometric functions. In each case we derive the symmetries of the generalized hypergeometric function under the Weyl group of type E 7 (ellip-tic, hyperbolic) and of type E 6 (trigonometric) using the appropriate versions of the Nassrallah-Rahman beta integral, and we derive contiguous relations using fundamental addition formulas for theta and sine functions. The top level degenerations of the hyperbolic and trigonometric hy-pergeometric functions are identified with Ruijsenaars' relativistic hypergeometric function and the Askey-Wilson function, respectively. We show that the degeneration process yields various new and known identities for hyperbolic and trigonometric special functions. We also describe an intimate connection between the hyperbolic and trigonometric theory, which yields an expression of the hyperbolic hypergeometric function as an explicit bilinear sum in trigonometric hypergeometric functions.