Page:A Sanskrit Grammar.pdf/7

Rh or exceptions, contained in other grammars, whether native or European, I have done so after mature consideration, deliberately preferring the less complete to the more complete, but, at the same time, more bewildering statement of the anomalies of the Sanskrit language. Thus, to mention one or two cases, when giving the rules on the employment of the suffixes vat and mat (§ 187), I have left out the rule that bases ending in m, though the m be preceded by other vowels than a, always take vat instead of mat. I did so partly because there are very few bases ending in m, partly because, if a word like kim-vân should occur, it would be easy to discover the reason why here too v was preferred to m, viz. in order to avoid the clashing of two m‘s. Again, when giving the rules on the formation of denominatives (§ 495), I passed over, for very much the same reason, the prohibition given in Pâṇ. III. 1, 8, 3, viz. that bases ending in m are not allowed to form denominatives. It is true, no doubt, that the omission of such rules or exceptions may be said to involve an actual misrepresentation, and that a pupil might be misled to form such words as kim-mân and kim-yati. But this cannot be avoided in an elementary grammar; and the student who is likely to come in contact with such recondite forms, will no doubt be sufficiently advanced to be able to consult for himself the rules of Pâṇini and the explanations of his commentators. My own fear is that, in writing an elementary grammar, I have erred rather in giving too much than in giving too little. I have therefore in the table of contents marked with an asterisk all such rules as may be safely left out in a first course of Sanskrit grammar, and I have in different places informed the reader whether certain portions might be passed over quickly, or should be carefully committed to memory. Here and there, as for instance in § 103, a few extracts are introduced from Pâṇini, simply in order to give the student a foretaste of what he may expect in the elaborate works of native grammarians, while lists of verbs like those contained in § 332 or § 462 are given, as everybody will see, for the sake of reference only. The somewhat elaborate treatment of the nominal bases in î and û, from § 220 to § 226,