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VARIANT ENDINGS -U, -AÜ AND -Ā IN THE APABHRAMŚA VERSES
19
Action noun:45
[N] dharanau 21b [D] no instances [S] baisanaŭ 28c
Unaccounted for:
[N]46 ümähau 166,47 bhamarau 30b [D]48 kudābau 34b49 [5]50 maggaữ 7b, tārunnai 16c, prāhunau 66a51
The material investigated shows that in Apabhramśa the long and extended endings are found only very rarely with other words than participles and adjectives, and, if so, only in a highly unsystematic way. The occurrence of these endings must therefore be related to the functions of these words. In a sentence the endings apparently served to distinguish the (nominal) predicate (a past or present participle, an adjective, or a noun) from the subject, in an adjectival clause they distinguished the adjective from the word it qualified.
A similar type of functional differentiation can be seen between the short and the long ending of the fem. i-stems. While the noun (subject or object) may have the short (-i) or the long (-1) ending, 52 the past participle and the adjective systematically have the long ending. The following examples have been taken from the verses in Hemacandra's grammar:
1. The past participle used predicatively 401, 3d: dinni mudda “A seal is placed on ..." 414, 4b: rutthi maï “I will be angry” 422, 14a: kudullī (...) ruddhī “A hut is closed" 431, lab: ditthi goraţi ditthi “The light-skinned woman is seen; she is seen ..." 445, 3a: pāi laggi antradī “The entrails are clinging to his feet"
2. The past participle used adjectivally: 330, lcd: suvannareha kasavattaï dinni "A streak of gold given on a touchstone"
3. Adjective used adjectivally: 330, 3b: vankī ditthi “Crooked glance"
