Page:Craven-Grey - Hindustani manual.djvu/28

 (b) Declension. The various cases are expressed in Hindústání by means of terminations, called postpositions. These postpositions answer the same, purpose as our prepositions. The following scheme will show the postpositions together with their signification. One example will suffice for all substantives.

Declension of a Hindustani Noun.

(c) The above example is applicable to all the substantives of the language with slight modifications. It will be observed that the nominative singular mard remains unaltered as a root. The nominative plural is the same as the singular. The vocative plural always ends in o, having dropped the nasal N of the preceding cases.

Exception i. All feminine nouns are declined exactly like mard, except that they add the syllable eh in the nominative plural, or aN if the singular ends in í ; thus, mez, a table ; nom. plural, mezeN roTí, bread, a loaf ; nominative plural, roTiyáN. In the oblique cases plural, they add oN, as in the example already given ; thus, mezoN-ko, to the tables, roTiyoN-se, from the loaves.