A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India v2.c12.102

v2.c12.102

§ 4. Under this rule is included a large number of adjectives which are oxytone in Sanskrit, and end with long á or o in the moderns. It may, however, be observed, that the majority of adjectives from a-stems end in á or o in the masculines, except in B. and O., where the habitual neglect of quantity has led to the final vowel being shortened. The rule therefore hardly covers all the examples, and is perhaps not meant to do so, as Bopp merely includes adjectives with the meaning of the present participle. We may suppose that the rule, once established for this class of adjectives, gradually extended itself to the others also, on account of the facility which the variety of terminations so obtained afforded for making the distinctions of gender. In those languages which pay little or no attention to gender, as the Bengali and Oriya, the distinction was not needed, and we hear in O. such phrases as boṛo bhái, “eldest brother,” and boṛo bhauni, “eldest sister.”