152 G. A. Grierson— Essays on Bihar i Declension. [No. 2, 
Sal. 7. ^TT^*r, Banaras Bhojpuri for rft^T ^rr’T-T. The form is 
never used in Maithili. 
Sal. 18. fa^% #r?T ^*rfa®f VT afa, if this means ‘ recognized people 
became unrecognized,’ it must also be Banaras Bhojpuri. It may, however, 
mean ‘ in recognition, people became unrecognized,’ in which case fa 5 ^ 
is the regular locative of the verbal noun fa^^r, ‘recognition,’ obi. 
instr. fa^T, loc. favfa. Similarly in 
Sal. 18. qn; vi may be considered as locative 
of and the sentence mean literally, ‘in dryness I will cross the river.’ 
The following also are locatives :— 
Sal. 17, 18. ‘ in reality.’ 
Sal. 7, 12, 14. ‘ at once.’ 
Sal. 12, ‘ at first.’ 
Sal. 20. *Tf^, ‘ in fighting,’ for «T being frequently substituted 
for in theth holt: as it is also done in the line immediately preceding 
where we have for iifarc# , and in the very common and vulgar 
or for 5Tnj«I, ( see gram. § 197). 
The only other form to be noted is the anomalous 
Sal. 19. snfa ^ *rfe«T, ‘ by caste I am a gipsy,’ where ir is not a 
Maithili, but -a western form appropriate enough in the mouth of such a 
woman. Compare, however, Sal. 20, 5TTfa=fr 
Derivation. » 
We have already seen that the oblique plural in *r or (fa or far) is 
derived from the Sanskrit genitive plural; and by parity of reasoning we 
should be led to expect that the Bihari oblique form singular in is de¬ 
rived from the Sanskrit genitive singular. It will now be shown that this 
is the fact.* It must be observed that these oblique forms are used (as far 
as we have hitherto investigated) only with nouns in the weak form. Thus, 
tWi 3TC, are all weak forms. Strong nouns of the ^ 
base in are commonly said to remain unchanged in the oblique cases, 
thus, i(T^T, ‘ a horse,’ obi. i|T^T, but in reality as will also be now seen, 
the oblique form, though the same in appearance as the nominative, is of 
different derivation,—in short, just as qv; (nominative) corresponds to Skr. 
1Z^, and (old form of oblique Efv;o) to Skr. ; so ifaT (nominative) 
corresponds to Skr. and iqT<pT (oblique) to Skr. We thus 
come to the general rule that strong forms of ^ bases always, and weak 
forms of bases frequently have an oblique form in ^r. 
* With regard to the following, see Hoernle, pp. 194, 195. I have, however, 
come to slightly different conclusions. 
