पृष्ठम्:The Sanskrit Language (T.Burrow).djvu/२१०

THE FORMATION OF NOUNS 204 sense, adds the feminine -1 in Sanskrit ( bhuyast , etc.) but Latin preserves the undifferentiated usage ( maior , masc. and fem.). Non-neuter nouns in -i and -u are both masculine and fem- inine. The adjectives in i do not distinguish a masculine and feminine stem (sucis nom. sg. masc. and fern.) and those in -u optionally follow the same system {cdrus masc. and fem,). The latter may optionally form feminines in two ways ( bahvi 4 much ' tanti 4 thin ’), but the fact that this still remains optional shows that it is a comparatively recent innovation. The thematic suffix -a, accented and forming adjectives was originally in the same way indifferent to the distinction between masculine and feminine. This state of affairs has become alto- gether extinct in Sanskrit, but in addition to its being preserved in full force in Hittite, it has left considerable traces in Greek and Latin. It is preserved in Greek in compounds (poSo- SiIktvAos rjws, etc.) and in both Greek and Latin in a number of individual formations. A good illustration is provided by the word for daughter-in-law which appears with the thematic suffix in Greek and Latin (wo?, nurus) as opposed to the speci- fically feminine a-suffix which appears in Sanskrit [snusS] and Slavonic (Russ, snoxd). There is no doubt that the form pre- served in Greek and Latin is the more original, and that the form as it appears in Sanskrit and Slavonic is an innovation due to the growth of the system of grammatical gender ; IE snus~o - was formed at a time when the accented thematic vow r el was used simply to make adjectives on the basis of neuter stems in the way amply illustrated above (udra- : v&top, etc.) and was, as still in Hittite, indifferent to gender. The word is based on an obsolete neuter in -us, and etymologically this sn-u-s- is to be connected with sn-eu-bh - in Lat. nubo, etc. (2) Instances in the reverse direction are quotable from a variety of IE languages. In dealing with the suffix -d (-an) it was pointed out that it could appear with two functions, one originally neuter forming verbal abstracts, etc., and the other adjectival ; also that, since the usual variations in accent and apophony between the tw'o types were mainly eliminated in these stems, there is no formal difference between the two. The feminine gender developed with the specialisation of this suffix, in its adjectival function, as a feminine suffix, but there are still preserved a number of masculine adjectival formations with this suffix. Examples of such masculines are seen in Lat. scriba ,