Page:A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India Vol 3.djvu/38

 STRUCTURE OF VERBAL STEMS.

23

Sanskrit passive having been worked into the stem, and the terminations of the active being added to it. The Atmanepada and the dual are of course rejected.

Of tenses these dialects have a still more restricted range than the Jaina Prakrits. They have the present, imperative and future, with traces of the potential. The past tense is chiefly formed by the p.p.p. with auxiliary verbs. Thus from f ^x^ " shine,"

Present S. 1. •frTrf^, 2. f^fa, 3. ft^-

Ilere are observable those first indications of a confusion of forms, and uncertainty in their use, which are always character- istic of that period in languages when the synthetical structure is breaking down into the analytical. In these dialects, as in Jaina Prakrit, the practice exists of inserting T£ as a junction vowel ; thus we have such forms as ^i^f*T " I do," Skr. off^tfj?, instead of <$^lfJT, which would be the regular result of treating 3T^ as a Bhu verb, ?T^|*f for ?T^RT, " let us go." The presence of the ^ in S. 1 and P. 1 is accounted for by its being confused with that construction in which the present of tSP8( is used with a past participle ; thus we find ^f^fi^ " I was made " = Sanskrit SKfUfST, and qfa^f*f " I have been sent " = Skr. ^farfUf^T-

The imperative has the following forms —

s. 2. -fr^ 3. -fr^. p 2. ft^re 3. fN pointing to a Sanskrit Atmane form "*Cr^^" and P. 2 similarly 7ft^4 = Skr. "^r^*4. though neither arc used in a middle sense, but arc equivalents as regards meaning of the Sanskrit active.