§§,%-40. 



ADJECTIVES. 



17 



Chapter V. 



Adjectives 3T?n^T'^3fi Gimavdchak. 

 J i • 



§ 36. The Maithil adjective is not declined. It sometimes is liable how- 

 ever to a change on account of gender. 



§ 37. As the rules for the formation of the feminine of adjectives are tlie 

 same as those for the formation of the feminine of substantives, it will be con- 

 venient to treat the whole subject of gender at the present oppoi-tunity. 



I must, however, preface my remarlcs by confessing that this will be 

 found, I fear, to be the most incomplete part of this grammar. As a matter 

 of fact the distinction of gender is observed hut loosely : except to pandits 

 grammatical gender, as distinct from natural gender, is almost unknown ; 

 that is to say, adjectives only become feminine when applied to female 

 living creatures, and hence I have found considerable difficulty in collecting 

 sufficient examples to warrant me in forming general rules. 



§ 38. It is a well known fact that in High Hindi the adjectives which 

 are derived from the prdhrit stock of the language, and which end in '^TT d 

 are in reality the only ones in that language which are affected by gender. 

 Adjectives imported direct from the Samskrit, and forming their feminines 

 after the model of that language, do not form part of the living spoken stock 

 of the Hindi dialect, but belong rather to the dead language of the books. 

 The same is only partly true in Maithili. In this language we find not 

 only frdlcrit but even some Sarnskrit adjectives forming feminines distinctly 

 the property of the language in which they have been adopted. 



§ 39. The genitival terminations of High Hindi, ^'fl, ^ Tee, and ^ hi 

 evidently correspond to the prdkrit derived adjectives ending in °^-«, and 

 In fact the genitive of a substantive may be considered as, and is liable 

 to the same changes as, a, prdkrit derived adjective in °^-a, °^-e,and °t-/. 



§ 40. Withou fc wishing it to be supposed that Maithili is in any way 

 whatever derived from High Hindi, it may be taken as a general rule that 

 wherever a prdkrit derived word occurs both in High Hindi and in Maithili, 

 if that word ends in a long vowel in High Hindi, the ttsus loquendi of 

 Maithili tends to shorten that vowel. Thus we have 



High Hindi. MaithiU. 

 pdnl. trrf'T pdni, water. 



tTRt ^ pdni hn. inf^ pdnik{a) of water. 



bard. ■^^ bar (a) great. 



The above rule is not universal, for we have in Maithili words Uke 

 nmd a boy, 7ieni a girl, hetd a son, and t^t heft a daughter ; but it 

 is nearly so. and may lie taken as general, 

 c 



