Wilson Philological Lectures on Sanskrit and the Derived Languages c8.81.1

c8.81.1

You will thus have observed a much greater progress in the operation of those principles which we found at work in the construction of the Pâli. Here as before we find that the less known forms are made up on the model of the more known. The number of old forms which still remained in some of the Pâli declensions and conjugations has been greatly reduced in the Prâkrits, and a further advance been made in the introduction of uniformity and simplicity in the grammar of the language. It is also worthy of remark, that in a great measure the same false analogies which are used in the Pâli have come down to the Prâkrit, and their range extended. Thus the analogy of nouns in इन् or neuter nouns in इ or उ has been carried much further in the declension of masculine nouns ending in इ or उ. Nouns in ऋ, अन् and वत् have adapted themselves more closely to the model of those ending in अ, their Sanskrit nom. case supplying the new अ base; and the अ conjugations have more generally prevailed over the rest. The device of using such case-forms as मम and मह्यम् as bases, and making up the cases by appending the proper terminations has also been more largely availed of. Some of these phenomena may be attributed to the operation of the same invariable laws in the development of either without being an index to a more intimate connection between the two dialects. But there are individual forms in the two languages which, though they might be different, are yet the same in both.