Grammar Of Apabhramsa

Author(s): Madhusudan Mishra
Publisher: Vidyanidhi Prakashan

Page 61

CHAPTER SIX
An Outline of Syntax
120. Apbh is the last mile-stone in the march of the IndoAryan language from the inflexional to the isolating type. On the one side there is Apbh of fully inflexional character and on the other there is Hindi (or any other modern vernacular) of completely isolating type.
We cannot also imagine the embarassment of the speakers in the socalled dark period when the old forms were being left out and new ones adopted.
121. The gradual change in morphology was responsible for simplification in the sentence pattern. A sentence like kara-i would have emerged as karanta ahai before its transition to the present Hindi pattern. Similarly, the absolutive paitthi would have passed through the stage paitthi kari, the future karibi through karibi gā, and so on, before the emergence of the corresponding Hindi sentences.
But, instead of dallying with these hypothetical sentences, we should deal directly with the Apbh sentences and compare them with those of the modern vernaculars.