A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India v3.c18.24

v3.c18.24

This form is the old Maharashtri Pr. form in ऊण, shortened from तूण, Skr. त्वां, accusative of त्वा (Lassen, p. 367), and has undergone singularly little change. I see in this a confirmation of the belief that modern Marathi is really the representative of the Maharashtri Prakrit, for it is only in Maharashtri that the conjunctive in ûṇa, tûṇa, is found. All the prose dialects without distinction take forms of the conjunctive derived from the Skr. -ya; this consideration seems to be fatal to the theory (Trumpp, p. 283; V. Taylor, p. 114, § 256) which would derive the G. conjunctive in ine from M. ûṇa. Setting aside the absence of any analogy for a change from û to î in such a connection, there is abundant evidence that G. is, by origin, a Rajput dialect belonging to that large group of dialects which we roughly class under the name of Hindi, and Śastri Vrajlâl (G. Bh. It. p. 3) points out the great gulf that exists between G. and M., as also the close connection of G. with the northern dialects. We have therefore strong reasons for not looking to M. for the origin of any G. form. The latter has, like the rest of the eastern Hindi group, Saurasenî for its parent, and the form in -ine, when compared with that in î in the same language, points clearly to the Saurasenî conjunctive in ia with a modern case-postposition ne or neṇ added.