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L. A. SCHWARZSCHILD
These Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit endings confirm the following general rule for Middle Indo-Aryan:
In locative singular endings beginning with a nasal conso
nant the final nasal consonant is lost by dissimilation. 4. The Apabhramsa ending -ahim is of interest in that it clearly belongs to group a) and has retained the final nasal. It must be derived from -asmin by means of a development through -assim > *āsim āhim > ahim. This is already foreshadowed by the pronominal forms of the type tassim, the adverbially used and relatively unaccented Māhārāstrī tahim < tasmin “there', and by the Māgadhī ending -āhim. There can be no doubt that in this respect, as in other features of morphology, Apabhrama differed totally from the literary traditions of the central dialects, where endings of group b), notably -mmi, were prevalent.
It seems therefore that the list of locative singular endings derived from -smin is only apparently diverse and complex, there is in fact great uniformity in the central dialects. The peripheral dialects show diversity only as a result of the influence of the important literary traditions of the central dialects.
D. THE LOCATIVE ENDING - The main problem of optional usage in the locative in Middle Indo-Aryan arises from the survival of the Sanskrit nominal locative ending -e alongside the derivatives of the original pronominal ending -smin. It has sometimes been stated (Pischel 366a) that there is complete liberty in Māhārāştri, Jain Māhārāstri and Jain Saurasens with regard to the locative singular ending, nouns and adjectives in any position in a phrase or sentence can be used with either –mmi or -e, and evidence can be quoted to prove this fact. But this does not take into account the relative chronology of the texts and the stylistic aspects of Prākrit usage.
1. THE USAGE OF THE EASTERN DIALECTS
Throughout the literary Middle Indo-Aryan dialects the derivatives of the old pronominal ending -smin were well
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