The Inflection of Sanskrit Nouns Found in Tocharian Texts

Sanskrit nouns in Tocharian texts are for the most part adapted only in inflection, not in phonology. This paper examines this adaption both as regards the form of the nominative singular and the formation of the plural. Evidence is presented for the view that many nouns, especially Sanskrit masculine a-stems and feminine a-stems, found their way into dialect A through the intermediary of dialect B. For other stems, however, evidence is largely lacking, though a similar situation can be assumed to obtain. This interpretation of the A materials coincides with the writer's view, defended elsewhere, that A was a dead liturgical language of the monasteries in the east at the time of our documentation, whereas B was the vernacular imported from the west

Inflection · Linguistics · Noun · Sanskrit · Ancient Near East History · Byzantine Studies and History · History · Linguistics and language evolution · Mathematics · Philosophy