144 Hoernle — Essays on the Gaurian Languages. [No. 2, 
similar consonants, the Gaurian elides one of the latter and lengthens the 
preceding vowel.* The following examples will illustrate this rule : 
Sanskrit. 
Pr&krit. 
Gaurian. Sanskrit. 
Prakrit 
Gaurian. 
s 
3iW 
sfiTR 
3131 
331 
313 
SfiW 
jsrsr 
31% 
3<n 
^313 
srst 
SRT3I 
3131 
3(13 
31 T% 
3)fiJl 
3J13 
TJ^i 
tfi-TisJivr 
tffijpr 
3iTJ)3' 
T* 
3j;wt 
^UJT 
^13 
etc. 
etc. 
etc. 
But there are exceptions to this rule. 
One of the most common of these 
is all from Prakrit and Sanskrit The genitive fanjf, 
&c., are also exceptional and become in Hindi , f%3, ffRI, &c. It follows, 
therefore, that the forms fanofTT etc. are pleonastic genitives. Rendered in 
Prakrit they would be fqr<^T (or #•%?), etc., with which may be 
compared the genitive #T3i quoted above on page 23. 
3. In most Gaurian languages the termination of the noun in inflexion, 
i. e. when followed by post-positions, undergoes some change, generally into 
y or ^T; e. g., Hindi iu^gr genitive 31% 3ii; Marathi genitive %T3T. These 
inflexional forms, I believe, to be simply modifications of the old organic geni- 
tives of the Sanskrit. I must content myself, however, here with this simple 
statement, and reserve the substantiation of it to a future paper on the in- 
flexional bases of nouns. 
Essay III. 
On the Inflexional Ease of Nouns. 
In the former essay I promised a paper on the inflexional base of Gau- 
rian nouns. The present essay will be devoted to this subject, the dis- 
cussion of which, it seems best to insert here, as it offers an important con- 
firmation of the theory set forth in the former essay, and a foundation for 
the treatment of the other inflexional post-positions in the subsequent essays. 
In most Gaurian languages, there are classes of nouns which exhibit a 
different form when placed in connexion with post-positions (i. e. in all 
oblique cases) from that which they have when they stand by themselves 
(i. e. in the nominative case). The former form I shall call the oblique 
form ; it is identical with what is often called the inflexional base. The 
* Traces of this law aro seen already in Prakrit, e. g., Sanskrit becomes in 
Prakrit w or .see P. P. VI, 5 ; or Sanskrit , Prakrit or : Sanskrit 
Prakrit WYt or ; Sanskrit Tift, Prakrit Yr%t or Y!‘<1 or Ylf i see 
P. P. Ill, 58. 
f Also true, from Prakrit and Sanskrit YT3I; bat in Naipali regularly 
3T3. 
