Page:Sanskrit Grammar by Whitney p1.djvu/145

 336. Endings: Singular. a. The nom. masc. and fem. adds to the stem the normal ending. The nom. and acc. neut. is the bare stem, without ending. In the Veda, the final of a few neuters is lengthened (248 b): thus,,.

b. The acc. masc. and fem. adds to the stem. Vedic forms in and, and, with ,  and , are excessively rare, and doubtful.

c. The instr. fem. in the later language takes the normal ending simply, while the masc. and neut. insert before it, making  and. But in the Veda, forms in and  (or  and ) are not infrequent in masc. and neut. also; while is found, very rarely, as a fem. ending. Moreover, fem. is often (in two thirds of the occurrences) contracted to ; and this is even sometimes shortened to. An adverbial instr. in from half-a-dozen stems in  occurs.

d. The dat. masc. and fem. gunates the final of the stem before the ending, making and. These are the prevailing endings in the Veda likewise; but the more normal and  (or ) also occur; and the fem. has in this case, as in the instr., sometimes the form  for. In the later language, the neuter is required in this, as in all the other weakest cases, to insert before the normal ending: but in the Veda such forms are only sporadic; and the neut. dat. has also the forms, , , like the other genders.

e. The abl. and gen. masc. and fem. have regularly, both earlier and later, the ending with gunated vowel before it: thus,, ; and in the Veda, the neut. forms the cases in the same way; although, required later, is also not infrequent ( does not occur). But the normal forms (or ) and  (or ) are also frequent in both masc. and neuter. As masc. ending, occurs twice in RV. The anomalous (so TS.; in the corresponding passages,  VS.,  K.,  MS.) is of doubtful character.

f. The loc. masc. and fem. has for regular ending in the later language, replacing both finals, and. And this is in the Veda also the most frequent ending; but, beside it, the -stems form (about half as often in RV.) their loc. in : thus, ; and this is found once even in the neuter. The RV. has a number of examples of masc. and neut. locatives in (the normal ending and the  gunated before it) from -stems; and certain doubtful traces of a corresponding  from -stems. Half-a-dozen locatives in (regarded by the Vedic grammarians as  or uncombinable: 138 d) are made from -stems. The later language makes the neuter locatives in and ; but the former never occurs in the oldest texts, and the latter only very rarely.

g. The later grammar allows the dat., abl.-gen., and loc. fem. to be formed at will with the fuller fem. terminations of long-vowel stems, namely, (for which, in Brāhmaṇa etc.,  is substituted: 307 h),. Such forms are quite rare in the oldest language even from -stems (less than 40 occurrences altogether in RV.; three times as many in AV.); and from -stems they are almost unknown (five in RV. and AV.).