1872.] 
155 
Hoernle — Essays on tlie Gaurian Languages. 
But to return to our enquiry, we have now seen that if a Prakrit 
noun having the general form of its base, passed into the Gaurian, it sub- 
mitted to the laws of the Gaurian. Hence e. g., the nominative singular 
of the Prakrit HH'if would become the inflexional base in the Gaurian 
not admitting an oblique form, but remaining unchanged in all cases ; thus 
nominative genitive instrumental etc. But the form 
of the Gaurian inflexional base is, then, modified to which now 
is the unchangeable inflexional base of all cases ; lastly, is modified 
to h#? which still remains the unchangeable inflexional base in modern 
Hindi. But this process of phonetic corruption has obtained in all modern 
Gaurian languages almost without exception, and has reduced all unchangeable 
inflexional bases, which originally ended in WT, to the form of the crude 
( general ) base in Only in Marathi a few isolated instances of the 
original unchangeable inflexional base in remains; e. g., ^7% gain (= 
nominative singular Prakrit wr%T = Sanskrit has nominative tjTT^T, 
gen. *n%r ^T, dat. wTlxpsiT, etc. In the present poetical and old Hindi it oc- 
curs only as ^its, and from the modem High Hindi it has disappeared alto- 
gether and has been substituted by the Sanskritio ^rrw. Some other in- 
stances in Marathi of the base in are WTTT surprise, *r%T sensation of 
burning, 3T[%T moaning, Hl^T bees’ nest. 
Confining our attention to the modern Hindi and the example we 
find that the modem Hindi possesses also another form of this same word ; 
viz., which is also tho unchangeable inflexional base of all cases in 
the singular ; thus : nominative #?, gen. ^rr, instr. if, etc. 
The difference between them is this, that Jjir? has come into the Hindi 
from the Prakrit, and belongs to the Proper Gaurian element, whereas 
and the same word which now exhibits tho Prakrit termination sg j (or ^jj), now the 
Gaurian reduced termination ^ (or ^j), Now, in Hindi at all events with which 
I am more particularly acquainted, every so-called tadbhava adjective may be used 
with both forms of the termination i (though no doubt one is more common than the 
other) 5 e. g., true is as well as (fern, ^t) ; great is as well as q-gq 
(fem. ; y°u may say ^ jj-gyr % as well as JRiV ^ he is a very 
vulgar man ; yon may also say ^ ST<T but not NxT ^Tff ^ ; again 
it is more idiomatic to say ^ 't t}ian Nx? ^Trf If it be said 
that it depends upon circumstances whethor the accent of the some word should 
influence the termination or not, then clearly it is not the accent but that ulterior 
cause which determines the form of the termination. I think there can bo no doubt 
that the roal cause of the difference in the termination is the absence or presence of 
the pleonastic affix This accounts most easily and naturally for all tho facts of tho 
case. This is no more a mere hypothesis ; though for tho present I must content 
myself with stating tho fact ; the proofs, which I hope to bring forward in another 
place, amount nearly to demonstration. 
