A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India v1.c6.90

v1.c6.90

The difficulty in this theory is that it was formerly stated (Chap. I., § 7) that early Tadbhavas—i.e. words which had come down through the medium of Prakrit—were distinguished by the fidelity with which they retained the accent, and it is part of this hypothesis that Prakrit also retained the accent. Yet here we find words retaining the accent, that is, showing traces of having felt its influence, and, therefore, having been in existence at a time when the Sanskrit accent was still known and heard, and which should, therefore, agree in form with Prakrit words, which yet do not agree in form with Prakrit. The words in § 53, where elision is practised, do, it is true, agree, but not those in § 52, where the consonant is merely weakened. Such forms, for instance, as H. *sagar*, Pr. *saadho*; H. *sâg*, Pr. *sâo*, seem to militate against the above theory. To this it may be replied, that the fact of the divergence of Prakrit in this respect from the modern languages is an additional argument in favour of the theory of the unreal and merely literary character of the constant elisions in that language, and that it is chiefly in Prakrit poetry that these elisions are found; in Prakrit prose they are much less frequent, and in Pali and the earlier forms of Prakrit they are almost unknown. Still, I must confess that this theory of the effect of the accent and the relation between long syllables and the preservation or elision of consonants, though it will probably eventually turn out to be correct, is at present in rather a crude state, and will require to be worked out at greater length when fuller materials are available.