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L. A. SCHWARZSCHILD
a number of variant morphs. Scribal and metrical features may be involved, but these do not account for all cases. It is possible that such forms were not in completely free variation with one another, but were syntactically and semantically conditioned, however subtly, An attempt is made here to illustrate this from the evidence of the locative singular masculine-neuter endings of nouns and adjectives in -a in Jaina Prakrit.
Two main types of endings are involved: i. -e corresponding to the Sanskrit -e.
ii. -msi, -mhi. -mmi and mmi derived from the Sanskrit
pronominal ending -smin.
B. REGIONAL VARIATION OF THE ENDING -smin The different forms derived from -smin are without doubt dialéctally conditioned. The clusters sibilant + nasal, as in -smin, have undergone changes in Middle Indo-Aryan, but owing to the intricate pattern of dialectal diffusion it is difficult to assess the exact regional distribution of the various developments. That such widely different forms cannot belong to one and the same dialect has already been stressed in the case of -Sn- by Lüders (1952: 130):
'Ich halte es für ausgeschlossen, dass die Verbindung des Zischlautes und n in demselben Dialekte und noch dazu in demselben Worte bald zu -sin- bald zu -nh- entwickelt haben sollte.'
Lüders comes to the conclusion that the forms retaining the sibilant are eastern in origin, and those showing the change -sn>-nh- are western.
The situation with regard to -sm is basically similar: the change of s to h in a sibilant + nasal cluster is characteristically western in origin. This is shown by the Asokan inscriptions (Mehendale 1948: 26):
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