पृष्ठम्:The Sanskrit Language (T.Burrow).djvu/२१३

THE FORMATION OF NOUNS 207 with gender, and could therefore be used in agreement with any noun. With the growth of the gender system a new type of adjectival neuter was created, e.g. puru beside purus 1 much and traces like the above were eventually eliminated. The pro- cess is still to be seen in the course of development in Sanskrit in the case of the agent nouns in -tr ; the neuter formation kartf- f doer ’ (gen. sg. kartfnas) is unknown in the earliest texts and is a later analogical development. The older neuter forms of adjectives, though of early origin, were to begin with innova- tions of the same type. The foundation of the non-neuter class lies in the adjectival formations, but it was early augmented by transferences which introduced a growing number of action nouns. These have been classified separately in the above pages and are illustrated by such examples as bhdrd- masc. ' burden ', jigtsi ‘ desire of con- quest vac- fern. ' speech ’, ojmdn- masc. * strength bhiyds - fem. ' fear matt - fern. ‘ intelligence and idntu - masc. 1 thread The nature of this transference seems to have been mainly mechanical. Personification plays a certain part but this is strictly subsidiary. It is understandable that a stem like usds- should appear as feminine for this reason in view of the place of usds- in the Vedic pantheon ; or that omdn - 4 assist- ance ' and daman- 4 liberality ' which are invoked as divine attributes of the gods should be masculine rather than neuter. But no such consideration can apply to the majority of such nouns. For instance, while it is quite clear that vac- fem. 4 speech ' is in Sanskrit usage quite definitely personified as opposed to the neuter vdcas- f it cannot be said that it owes its feminine gender to this. On the other hand it is capable of being personified because for other reasons it has- acquired the feminine (derived from the originally common) gender. Stems terminating in occlusives in all IE languages take the nomi- native s and distinguish between nominative and accusative. In this they are distinguished from the mass of neuter action nouns and agree with the adjectival and agent noun type. It is clear also from the absence of cases to the contrary that this must have been the case from a very early period. There is no logical basis for this ; all that can be said is that there is a general rule that all stems of this type inflect in this way, that vdk($) f vicam is so inflected because it is a radical stem ending in an occlusive. The fact that it is inflected in this way, and