A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India v2.c12.160

v2.c12.160

It will be more appropriate to discuss this matter at full length under the Verb, and I therefore content myself here with saying that the long vowel appears not to be in any way whatever due to the accent, but to have arisen from the influence of the anuswâra (see Vol. I. § 65), by which karaṇam became first करणीं, then करणीं, करनां, and lastly karnâ. In M. the infinitive is still neuter, and it is masculine in the H. P. and S. merely because those languages have lost the neuter, and only retain the other two genders.¹