A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India v3.c18.94

v3.c18.94

It is noticeable, however, that this habit in Italian and Spanish is modern, and does not exist in Latin, any more than it does in Sanskrit. Is it, then, a result of the confusion of forms that sprung into existence simultaneously with the decay of the old synthetic system, or is it an adoption of a Semitic principle? Diez finds the origin of the suffixed pronouns in shortened forms of the dative and accusative of Latin, which were already in use in the classical period.¹ It remains, however, to be explained how this peculiarity arose in the Romance group, in one member of the Iranian, and two members of the Indian group, only, and nowhere else in all the wide range of the Indo-European family.