Page:A Grammar of the Urdū Or Hindūstānī Language in Its Romanized Character.djvu/36

 Urdu characters. But the letter is = either e, i, or y and =either o, u, or w, according to the letters or vowel- signs that precede or follow them.

In the case of Feminine words ending in long d, the Nominative Plural is formed (like those ending with consonants) by adding en. Thus, dawa  'medicine.' Nominative Plural dawa-en. Genitive dawdon-ka, etc.

Persian and Arabic forms of Nouns in the Plural are not infrequently used in Urdu parlance. In the former language Plurals are formed by adding the syllables an for animate beings and ha for inanimate, or sometimes by adding at as in Arabic. In Arabic there are many other ways of forming Plurals.

26. The Genitive Case, it will be observed, has three different forms, as kutte-kd, kutte-ke, kutte-kl. Which is to be used depends on the Gender and Case of the governing Noun. If this be Masculine and in the Nominative Singular, then the affix ka must be used. If Masculine, and in any other Case, Singular or Plural, then ke; if Feminine, in any Case or Number, then ''kl. The fact is, as before remarked, that the Genitive Case is really an Adjective, or, at least, is formed by means of an adjectival affix (derived from the Sanskrit, and resembling the Latin affixes cus, ca, cum), ''which must agree with the Substantive it qualifies. Similarly, in Persian, the sign of the Genitive and" the connecting link between an Adjective and the Noun it qualifies, are one and the same, viz. a short i or e. Thus, pisar-e-bādshah 'the king's son'; and Mard-i-k͟hūb 'a good man.' This Persian construction is of frequent occurrence in Urdu writing and conversation.