THE FORMATION OF NOUNS 165 the feminine gender : Skt. ndkt - ' night Lat. nox , Gk. vv£ ; Lat. quies, salus r etc. Gk. Qefj, is-, x^P 1 *- The reason that such formations are so rare is that as a general rule they have been supplanted by extensions of the simple /-suffix, namely by ti in the case of action nouns, and by td in the case of abstracts. In Skt. dasdt ' decade 1 beside dasati- ' id.' we have an example of the unextended and ex- tended form side by side. An isolated avirat- ‘ absence of heroes ' (avtrate dat. sg. RV. 7.1. 19) represents a type that has otherwise been universally supplanted by the compound suffix td. A very small number of feminine nouns in -t appear in Sans- krit : sravat-, vahdt both meaning ‘ stream sascdt * obstacle’, vehdt- ‘ cow which miscarries Of these the last is presumably adjectival and the others could be. A masc. adjectival form appears in vaghdt- 4 worshipper This adjectival suffix appears elsewhere, cf. Lat. pedes 4 footman eques 4 horseman In ndpdt- 4 grandson ’ there is a formation with vrddhied suffix which may be compared with the similar formations analysed above. This stem is also interesting because it retains an ancient type of declensional apophony. A reduced grade appears in Skt. nddbhyas dat. abl. pi., Av. napto abl. sg,, nafsu loc. pi. (with reduction of the three consonant groups). There are other examples of the vrddhied suffix in adjectival forma- tions in other languages : Av. ravas-iardt- ' moving in the open country Gk. dpyrjs ‘ shining ’ ( apyrjr - or apyer- in the oblique cases, cf, the two types Sorrjpa and Troiftiva), ndvrjs ‘ poor yvpiv 77? ' lightly armed soldier’, Lat. aries ' ram ' (gen. -etis), AS. heele ' hero ’ (xalep), They differ from the vrddhied forma- tions involving the other suffixes only in that they take the nominative -s, which is the normal practice with stems in occlusives. Skt. paddti- 4 foot soldier ’ and patti- ' id.’ are both i- extensions of a /-stem ; the two different farms derive from the declensional apophony of the primitive stem. In one special case the suffix / remains a living formative in Sanskrit. It has been noted above (§ 2) that roots ending in the vowels i, u and r cannot, like other roots, function without any addition as nominal stems. Where other roots do so they in- variably add the suffix t : stut - 4 praise ’, samit - ' battle ', niyut- ' team vft- 'army, host rit- 4 stream mil- 4 post hrut-
- treachery ; foe These stems, like the root stems, may be
used either as action nouns (in which case they are feminine) or
