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216
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(AUGUST, 1898.
which certain vowels undergo in Declension and Conjugation, with a few examples. The following pages, therefore, do not owe much to this MS.
182. The other authorities, in the Roman character, mentioned by me in $$ 1 and ff., are extremely incomplete as regards nouns, and treat them very superficially.53
It thus happens that the solution of many difficulties can only be arrived at by the study of existing texts, and these, it must be confessed, do not always sufficiently assist us, in ascertaining satisfactorily the correct forms of words. For example, in Np. the vowel points are often omitted, or written without adhereace to any fixed rule. Thus, a and i are not unoften interchanged : e.g., aiá hands, beside sio hindi; and again ó ó is sometimes written for 14 a(6), thus o or go mój, a mother, and so many others.63
So also in the texts written in the Devanagari character there is a similar want of system in writing words and forms. E.g., तसन्द and तसोन्द्, निरेख, but नेरेत, which are good examples of the difficulty of fixing the pronunciation.54
I regret, therefore, that the following pages cannot be affirmed to rest in every point on a secure basis ; but they may serve to assist further studies in Kasmiri.56
I. - Gender. 183. The gender of substantives and adjectives is either masculine or feminine. In the case of pronoang, it may also be neuter. When masculine nouns are changed to feminines we find the same changes of final consonants, which we observed in the case of verbs (see $ 158).50
184. [We thus get the following changes.57 They only occur either in the formation of feminines from masculines, or in the declension of feminine nouns.
Final Sy becomes aj
a hat. o oc
; (only in declension58 o ch (only in declension)59 4 chh (only in declension)59 & ch
chh
, ,
I kh
. ,
* The MS. marked i by me must be excepted. Even in this, however, the Personal Pronouns are not given, and the numerals only as far as 48. [Another exception must be made in Mr. Wade's excellent little grammar, which was not known to the suthor.)
65 [The fact is that in Ki-emirt the vowel scale is by no means fixed. In different parts of the country, and by different people, and by the same person at different times, words are pronounced in different ways. There is as yet no standard. This is exemplified by the diffioulties experienced in representing many of the sounds in the Persian and in the Devanagari alphabet. - TEANS.)
(The translator bas endeavoured to illustrate what he believes to be the most usual pronunciation in each case, by the system of transliteration adopted by him: see $8 5 and .)
69 (Mr. Wade's grammar and Israra-kaula's Kasmira-tabu Amrita (A native grammar odited by the translator for the A. S. B.) have enabled the translator to control Dr. Burkhard's results, and, in a few cases, to silently correct slips of the pen, or statements resting on incorrect authorities.)
* We thos, find in Lako, txi. 24, from Sie di inta-mond, trodden onder foot, pl. t. dsto di late-manje
57 [The reader is referred to $$ 158 and ff. The corrections there made are also made bere. The author was under tho impression that the rules for nouns differed from those for verbs, but this is not the case, and correction have been made in the text accordingly.)
- In these cases, the change is not observed in the nominative feminine.
