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Nāsaketari Kathā
477
as it does not fully coincide with any of the dialects treated in the L.S. Thus, the genitive in -ro, -rī, the nominative of the pronoun of the first person huộ, and the imperfect tense formed by combining the pres. part. with the past of the verb substantive are characteristic of modern Mārawādī and modern Mālavī. A future tense like mārasi occuring in singular as well as in plural ( Modern Mārawādī knowing only the singular ) and the formation hoya of the present of the root ho are peculiar to Modern Jaipuri. Other features are found in Modern Mārawādi only, such as the accusative-dative in -rai, the infinitive in -ņa, the two adverbial participles in -āṁ. On the other hand, the third person present of the verb substantive chai occurs in Modern Jaipuri, and, in the shape che also in Nimādī and certain subdialects of Mārawāļi, i.e., in the Dhāțakī Thāļī of Jaisalmer, in Sirohi and Bikānerī, whereas the past tho, thi occurs in Mālavī, Ahīrawātī, Nīmādī, and the Sirohi and Thalí subdialects of Mārawādī.
And, finally, there are a few grammatical forms now only appearing in dialects adjacent to the territory of Rājasthānī, such as the sporadic Gujarāti genitive in -no, -nī, the Gujarāti conjunctive participle in -i, or the Bundeli and Hindi forms mo-, to- of the pronouns of the first and second person singular ( with the -nai accusative ), whereas forms like the sporadic accusative in -nu, a pronominal formation like titarai, etc., have no modern equivalents
at all.
But apart from such sporadic forms, or heterogeneous peculiarities, the main store of the grammatical forms point towards Mārawāda, and, within Mārawāda, towards the territory of Jaisalmer, if we may judge from the short specimens given in the L.S.
A number of characteristics of our text point to an earlier stage of linguisitic development : e.g., the distinction between the locative in -ai and that in -e and -i ( the former being confined to strong, the latter to weak nouns, whereas the modern vernaculars have dropped the i-locative, and employ the forms in -e and -ai
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