पृष्ठम्:The Sanskrit Language (T.Burrow).djvu/२१२

206 THE FORMATION OF NOUNS ' prayer Skt. ydsas- ‘ fame ', brahma ' prayer ', *sthatar ‘stability', and on the other hand by Skt. udrd- ‘water- animal, otter fkvan- ' worshipping, worshipper yasds - ‘ famous brahman - ‘ priest and sthatdr- ' stander and in other examples copiously quoted above. It is therefore mis- leading to speak of an ‘ animate ’ and ' inanimate ' gender as if the twofold classification were in origin the expression of such a distinction. It is clear enough from the evidence that the origin of the system was primarily grammatical and not due to any psychological classification of objects in the external world. The so-called nouns of ‘ common gender ' or ' animate gender ' are in origin agent nouns, and they are predominantly ‘ ani- mate ’ (and in the main designative of human beings), because it is natural that the agent type of noun is most frequently applied to persons. It is not however exclusively so, and this may be illustrated by a number of Greek formations in -rryp, e.g. do/mjp 1 sword-belt apa mjp ‘ lamp-stand Kparrjp * mixing-bowl TptTrrrjp * pestle Y ^ukttjp ‘ yoke-strap etc. These represent an ancient type, better preserved in Greek than elsewhere, and show how in origin the adjective/agent-noun class of stem had nothing to do with the distinction between animate and in- animate. We have seen that these suffixally accented forma- tions are originally based on a class of neuters which are well represented by the Hittite formations in -tar. The latter are in the main verbal abstracts or nouns of a similar type. The adjectival type with suffixal accent means somebody or some- thing connected with the meaning of the primary neuter, and could originally apply to things as well as to persons. Because in practice such formations were most frequently applied to persons, the tendency was to eliminate their use as inanimates, so that in the case of nouns in -ter for instance such usage is rare outside this Greek type. Another type of archaism is preserved in the Vedic language. This is the occasional use of the masculine form of adjectives, in the case of consonantal stems, in agreement with neuter nouns. As examples of this we may quote vdcah . . . dvibdrhdh RV. 7. 8. 6, sdrdho . . . anarvanam 1. 37. i, visarmdnam krnuhi vittdm 5, 54, 9, sdrdho m&rutam . . . satydsravasam fbhvasam 5. 52. 8, tad rdstram ojasvi bhavati MS 4, p. 47,4. These reflect an early state of affairs when the formations with accented suffix and vrddhied nominative were purely adjectival, unconnected