Wilson Philological Lectures on Sanskrit and the Derived Languages c11.63

c11.63

That these several cases may pass into the dat. acc. is also proved by the fact that the forms of the Apabhrams'a gerund or infinitive of purpose, which has essentially a dative sense, are derived from them. Thus Hemachandra gives these terminations of the infinitive: एवम् as in देवम् ‘for giving’ which is an acc. of the pot. part. देअव्म्, अण as in करण ‘for doing’ in which the case termination is dropped., अणहम् as in भंजणहं ‘for breaking’ which is the gen. pl. of भंजन and अणहिं as in भुंजणहिं ‘for enjoying’ which is loc. sing. or pl. of भुंजण Pr. for Skr. भोजन. Thus then in the Apabhrams’a pronominal forms had begun to be used as postpositions for expressing case relations. It is not unreasonable, therefore, to expect that we should find traces of the practice in our modern case forms and the forms themselves that were used in that dialect.