1883.] Hugh Fraser— Folklore from Fastern QoraJcpur. 23 
In the Ramayan Tipr or 'WTT. 
In Maithili, or 
In Magadhi and Bhojpuri flT*;. 
They are common in desiderative compounds, generally with a dative 
postposition, or %. Thus (Bhojpuri), ^rr ^t^T, ‘ he wishes for 
beating’, i. e., he wishes to beat. So also we have in Marathi 
‘ I fancy he wants to eat me’. It will be seen that in 
Marathi the oblique form ^T^JT ends in ^t. This is also the case in Hindi, 
where such phrases as *?TTT ‘ a beating on a beating’, are common. 
Here the word WCr is undoubtedly the oblique form of TUK'f, as I have 
shown elsewhere. This oblique form in explains the desiderative and 
frequentative compound in Hindi, which has much puzzled grammarians. 
These compounds are usually stated to be formed with the past part., thus 
3iT*rT, ‘to read frequently’, and #I^TT ‘to wish to speak’, 
where xfgy and are called past participles. Really they are oblique 
forms of the verbal noun (or root), being the oblique form of 
(nff, or xpf’t), and sfTtsIT, the oblique form of (^Tf% or %T^t). 
Hence we get >fTY«TT (and not ^T^*TT), ‘ to wish to die’, because 
?TTT, and not is the oblique form of (^fc or fl^f), ‘ the act of 
dying’. 
Y. 6. 3fT is the regular Bhojpuri form for the neuter interrogative 
pronoun, ‘ what ?’. 3»r is used also in western Magadhi, but in eastern 
Magadhi and in Maithili we first meet the Bangali 
^ir^T is the regular Bhojpuri 3 sg. pres., see Hoernle’s Gd. Gram, 
is emphatic for ‘ I also’. 
is a contraction of the redundant form of which 
is the long form of irf^, ‘ a daughter’, see Gd. Gram § 356. ^tt in this 
verse, has not, I believe, any negative force. Hence, 1 would trans¬ 
late ‘ 1 too am’, instead of ‘ Am not I too’; and omit the mark of interro¬ 
gation. 
Y. 7, ^<3 altered from ^3> for the sake of metre. ^3? is the 
regular feminine 2 plur. of the present tense of the verb subst. ^ 
‘ be’. added gives the force of the conjunctive mood. The termi¬ 
nation <3* is the peculiar mark of the 2 plur. feminine through all tenses 
of all verbs: compare v:^T, and further on. 
3f is the direct sign of the genitive, and is unaffected by gender. 
Its oblique form is 3\T, also unaffected by gender. These are the pure 
Bhojpuri forms ; those given by Hoernle (Gd. Gram., § 373) refer to the 
western Bhojpuri spoken near Banaras. 
rfr, iff, <f;, or g, are all forms of the 2nd pers. pronoun non- 
honorific. 
