A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India v2.c12.37

v2.c12.37

Suffixes are monosyllabic or dissyllabic. Out of the vast mass of suffixes mentioned by the Sanskrit grammarians, many may be dismissed as unconnected with the present subject, inasmuch as the stems formed by them were so formed before the rise of the modern languages, and the question of their construction is a matter not of modern, but of ancient, grammar. Our seven languages took over these words ready made, and, as far as we are concerned therefore, they may be regarded as primitive words. Only such suffixes will here be introduced as have left traces in the speech of the present times; and if it be necessary to speak of certain of them which are of purely Sanskrit use, it is merely because of their bearing on phonetic or structural processes of recent introduction.