A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India v1.c7.100

v1.c7.100

nexus in this important particular—that whereas in the latter the first consonant is always assimilated to the last, in the former the weaker consonant of the two, whatever its position in the nexus, is assimilated. It is singular that the letters which I have classed as weak, and which are really weak when they occur in a nexus, should, as shown in the last chapter, be, when standing alone, more tenacious of existence, and less liable to elision than the strong letters. The cause of this apparent anomaly has been suggested as lying in their comparative softness, which renders them less liable to be omitted from euphonic causes, as they do not stop the liquid flow of Prakrit words by any harsh or decided check, like the strong letters; and this very softness renders them more liable to be passed over or treated as merely strengthening the strong letter with which they are combined, just as has been pointed out in the case of modern Bengali pronunciation in Chap. I., § 26.