140 
[No. 2, 
G. A. Grierson —Essays on Bihari Declension. 
Reference to the above will show that the oblique form of the plural 
has four terminations, viz., , ?r, fff: and these terminations are only 
added to the weak base of a noun. This is even the case when the noun 
is not used in the singular or in the nominative plural in the weak form. 
JE. g., (Banaras-Bhojpuri) nom. sing. crp3T (strong form), ‘a barber’; 
nom. plur. (strong form) ; and obi. plur. «TT^?r (weak form). It is 
commonly said that strong-forms shorten their termination before *T in the 
oblique plural, hut this is hardly the correct way of looking at the matter. 
The base iir?sr cannot be said to be formed from the base i?rgT, for this would 
presuppose (as will he seen further on) a Skr. form i?TE3ffT*rt, which would 
become in Prakrit (see Hoernle, p. 211) (whence perhaps O. H. 
cf. Hoernle, p. 195), *ifT^PF?, which would 
become in Bihari or and not iirf «T. 
The only exception to this is the Maithil-Magadhi sub-dialect, which 
forms the oblique plural on the base of the long form, which may be 
referred to the Prakrit long form above referred to. 
These plural oblique forms are not used in Maithili in the case of 
nouns, except in a few isolated words like ‘all,’ and ‘people.’ 
They are common, however, in Maithili pronouns where the plural form 
has acquired a singular honorific sense,—thus, rrfsT ‘ him,’ a?f«T, ‘ whom.’ 
Wherever these forms are used in the oblique plural, they can also be 
used in the sense of a direct plural, in most of the dialects. The oldest 
dialect (that of the Ramayan) confines these forms principally to the 
oblique case, but not universally, as in the phrase fsiwr ^ 
‘ I have beaten those who have beaten me.’* Banaras Bhojpuri follows 
the Ramayan very closely in this particular, but the other dialects use the 
oblique form indifferently in the direct and oblique cases plural. 
To sum up the results of the above, we find that in Bihari the nomina¬ 
tive plural can alwaysf be the same as the nominative singular ; and cer¬ 
tain dialects also form an oblique plural in *r, f%, or f*r, which is also 
in certain of these adopted by the nominative. 
With regard to the periphrastic plural, the usual affixes are ‘ all,’ 
and %TJI ‘ people.’ Bhojpuri, however, and the sub-dialects of Purniya, 
and Bhagalpur add the words 
Bhojpuri 
Purniya-Maithili faff 
Bhagalpur-Maithili 
* Kellogg (p. 224) adduces this verse as an example of the use of the case of the 
. . _ ^ si- 
agent before a transitive verb. As, however, ^ which occurs in the same sentence 
also before a transitive verb is undoubtedly in the nominative (the oblique form being 
■flTf^) it is more convenient to consider as an example of the oblique plural 
used in a nominative sense. 
f The Ramayan is very rare, and is probably a form borrowed from Hindi. 
