Wilson Philological Lectures on Sanskrit and the Derived Languages c7.54

c7.54

The singulars of the pronouns of the first and second persons are the same as in Sanskrit; as अहं, मं, मया, मम or मे, and मयि; त्वं, त्वं, त्वया, तव or ते, and त्वयि. The syllable त्व is optionally dissolved into तु in the nominative and accusative which have thus तुवं, and changed to त in the latter as well as in the instrumental and locative; and so we have तं, तया and तायि also. The dative and genitive being confounded, the Sanskrit मह्यम् and तुभ्यम् of the former are in the form of मय्हं and तुय्हं used for both cases. The latter has also the forms ममं and अम्हं and तुम्हं, the anusvāra being inserted from the analogy of the plural. The plural of अहं is मयं in which the initial व of the Sanskrit form is changed to म; and in the accusative, instrumental, and locative, the Sanskrit base अस्म in the form of अम्ह is declined like the masculine तद्, and the forms are अम्हे, अम्हेहि, and अम्हेसु. The यु of युष्मद् was probably weakly pronounced, hence the singular base यु has been transferred to the plural and the peculiar syllable of this number स्म tacked on to it, and the whole in the form of तुम्हे is declined like तद् in all the cases except the genitive; as तुम्हे, तुम्हे, तुम्हेहि &c. The forms of the plurals of this last are like those in Sanskrit; as अम्हाकं and तुम्हाकं. The accusative singulars of these pronouns have the forms मं and त्वं, besides those mentioned above. These are made up by adding anusvâra, the sign of the accusative, to the form of the genitive used as a base. On the same principle we have अम्हाकं and तुम्हाकं for the plural, but as the genitive forms have an anusvâra already, the addition of the accusative sign makes no difference. This is an isolated instance in this dialect of a method of constructing new case-forms, which is, we shall find as we proceed in our investigations, largely used in the later dialects and especially in the modern vernaculars.