155 
1883.] G. A. Grierson —Essays on Bihari Declension. 
such exists. Such a form as does exist both in S'auraseni and Maga- 
dhi Prakrit (see Vara. V, 22). Feminine nouns in long form their 
genitives in thus “ a river,” gen. sing. Moreover, just as 
*?Tr, is weakened to HR®, so in later Prakrit is weakened to *R^T, 
or 
We may hence conclude that is the direct descendent of 
the genitive singular of the Magadhi Prakrit feminine noun 
It now remains (a) to see what has become of this Prakrit nom. fem. 
?TT^t in the later Gaudian languages, and ( b ) to trace it to its Sanskrit 
origin. 
(«). The usual phonetic law of development is that Prakrit nouns 
ending in long vowels, shorten these vowels in the modern Gaudian lan¬ 
guages. Under another well known Gaudian phonetic law, these final 
short vowels are, in some dialects, liable to elision. Hence we should expect 
to find a form jttIt or in the modern languages. Both these forms do 
exist in the modern languages. Eastern Gaudian ( i. e., Bangali, and Bihari) 
prefers the form while western Gaudian and Marathi prefer the 
shortened form tjr. In all these cases the word is feminine, which shows 
that WK cannot be derived from a Prakrit masc. nom. 5TTTT ; and the deriva¬ 
tion I have suggested is borne out by the following reasons. 
(1.) Western Hindi possesses a parallel strong form TIR 5 ), derived 
from the Prakrit strong form HTf^UT, which is itself the strong form of 
the Prakrit from which the modern TfTf^ or is derived. 
(2.) The declension of this verbal noun in Marathi (see Man. 2nd 
Ed., p. 53) shows clearly the derivation. In the second declension of 
Marathi nouns, all nouns derived from Sanskrit nouns in x (such as fVffT, 
1 a wall’ from Skr. fwfrl) or x (such as “ dry ginger,” from Skr. 
form their oblique form in x, thus,—fVnft and This is plainly derived 
from the Prakrit genitive fVi’fN, (Var. Y, 22) and or ^ja 5 !?;, 
the genitive of feminine nouns in and x having in Prakrit similar forms. 
But in Marathi another class of nouns also follows the same declen¬ 
sion, viz., “ feminine nouns derived from Marathi verbs,” such as 
* a deficiency,’ obi. '^^1, connected with “ to break and TflT, 
“ a beating,” connected with wyijU “ to beat.” That is to say, they are 
derived from Prakrit nouns in x or x> viz., Marathi obi. corre¬ 
sponds to the Prakrit rjft, gen. gifc, and Marathi T[R, obi. ; H. dir. 
or *nfic; Bihari obi. correspond to the Pr. gen. 
or flRH. 
In this series, I have given no oblique form for Hindi. In the majo¬ 
rity of cases this has disappeared in that language, but it survives in 
* Maithili prefers the form but Bhojpuri and Magadhi (except in poetry) 
always have jq-y;. 
