S 115.] LINGUISTIC CLASSIFICATION OF ORMURI. 51 



Spirant letter,— h, x, 9, or /,— to disappear when immediately followed by another con- 

 sonant. It is in the western dialects that this is most frequent, and with them Ormuri 

 is in entire agreement. Thus, original xs becomes s or s (§ 28, 8), Ow and ft alto- 

 gether disappear (§§ 14, 9 ; 21, 5c), and fs beconies s (§ 28, 9). With a following r, 

 xr and dr, become the special Ormuri sound s' (§ 29, i, b, e), and no example is 

 available for fr. 



§110. In the Non-Persian dialects there is a tendency to weaken intervocalic 

 labials to semivowels or vowels. In the western dialects this is most common, and 

 here again Ormuri agrees. Intervocahc p regularly becomes w or D (§§ 11, 3 ; 14, 5)- 

 No example occurs for b, but intervocalic fn becomes w (§ 14, 6). 



§ III. Intervocalic t, 9, and d, are retained in P='§t6 and Baloci, but in the 

 western dialects they regularly disappear and also occasionally disappear in M. and 

 Yd. They also regularly disappear in O., but not so in Prs. (§§ 33, 6 ; 34 ; 35. 4)- 



§ 112. Ormuri agrees with P'sto and the Pamir dialects in having developed the 

 fricative letters h and dz, from the original palatal c and /(y) (§§ 31, i ; 32, i, 2). It 

 also agrees wnth P'sto in the use of the letter s, which, as in that language, is fre- 

 quently interchanged with s (28, i) ; but, unlike P'sto, it does not change initial 

 sonants to spirants, nor does it show any trace of the P'sto change of d and t to /. 

 In inflexion, like P'sto and the Pamir dialects, it forms causal roots by means of the 

 suffix -av-. 



§ 113. Ormuri exhibits a striking agreement with the Pisaca languages in the 

 eHsion of intervocalic r (§ 15, 6), and in the frequent epenthetic changes of vowels 

 and consonants, especially in the formation of the plural of nouns substantive and 

 adjective (§§ 57 ; 61) and of the masculine singular of past participles (§ jy). In in- 

 flexion, it also agrees with the Pisaca languages in the plural of the second personal 

 pronoun (§ 64), and in the characteristic termination k of the infinitive and past 

 participle (§ 76). 



§ 114. Turning to other inflexional characteristics, we find that Ormuri agrees 

 with Prs., as against the Non-Persian dialects, in having lost the oblique case. The 

 only traces of this that survive in Ormuri are found in a few adverbial words (§ 58) 

 and in the singular of the first personal pronoun (§ 64). On the other hand, Ormuri 

 has preserved the distinction of gender, which is lost both in Persian and in the 

 western dialects, but is retained in the East, in P^sto, Baloci, and the Pamir dialects. 

 Ormuri also differs from Persian in the use of the passive construction with transitive 

 verbs in the past tenses. Nearly all the Non-Persian dialects agree with Ormuri in 

 this respect. 



§ 115. Ormuri agrees with the western dialects in its noun substantive using a 

 plural formed with a termination derived from the Pahlavi -Iha (§ 57), although the 

 particular resultant termination does not appear elsewhere, whereas, in P'sto and 

 the Pamir dialects the relics of the old plural terminations have been retained (GIP. 

 I, ii, 419). On the other hand, Ormuri does not use the termination -an, which, like 

 -iha, has survived in Persian, and which is also used in the western dialects and in 

 Baloci. 



