Wilson Philological Lectures on Sanskrit and the Derived Languages c7.50

c7.50

Feminine nouns. The nominative, besides the old forms, has another transferred from nouns in ई; as कन्यायो. The singulars of the instrumental and the succeeding cases, excepting the vocative, have one same form made up from the Sanskrit genitive by dropping the visarga and shortening the final vowel; as कन्याय, instrumental, dative, ablative, genitive, and locative singular. The others and also the locative singular have the old forms; as कन्याभि-हि instrumental, and ablative plural, कन्यां genitive and dative plural, and कन्यासु locative singular and plural. The final member य of the conjunct which appears in the case-forms of nouns in ई such as नदी, is dissolved into इय, and thus we have नदियो from the Sanskrit नद्यः; and this and नदी from the Sanskrit नदीः are both of them the plurals of the nominative and accusative; नद्या the singular of the instrumental is dissolved into नदिया, and also नद्याः of the ablative and genitive which after dropping the visarga becomes नद्या;* and this is extended to the locative singular, which has also another form नदियं, from नद्याम्. There is nothing particular about the rest. Nouns in short इ are declined in exactly the same way, except that Kachchâyana gives such forms as रत्या and रत्यं in addition to रतिया and रतियं for the singular of the ablative and locative. Nouns in उ or ऊ follow completely the analogy of those in ई; the forms of वधू, for instance, are not derived from the corresponding Sanskrit forms of the noun, but are made up by adding the final syllables of those of नदी; as वधुयो nominative and accusative plural, वधुया singular instrumental, ablative, genitive, &c.