Page:Sanskrit Grammar by Whitney p1.djvu/163

 366. The noun f. woman (probably contracted from  generatrix), follows a mixed declension: thus,,  or , , , , , ; , , ; ,  or , , , ,  (but the accusatives  and  are not found in the older language, and the voc.  is not quotable). The accentuation is that of a root-word; the forms (conspicuously the nom. sing.) are those of the other or derivative division.

367. a. The occurrence of original adjectives in long final vowels, and of compounds having as final member a stem of the first division, has been sufficiently treated above, so far as masculine and feminine forms are concerned. To form a neuter stem in composition, the rule of the later language is that the final long vowel be shortened; and the stem so made is to be inflected like an adjective in or  (339, 341, 344).

b. Such neuter forms are very rare, and in the older language almost unknown. Of neuters from -stems have been noted in the Veda only, acc. sing. (a masc. form), and, gen. sing. (same as mac. and fem.); from -stems, only a few examples, and from stem-forms which might be masc. and fem. also: thus,, , etc. (nom.-acc. sing.: compare 354); and , instr. sing.; and, acc. pl. (compare : 342 k); from -stems occur only half-a-dozen examples of a nom. sing. in, like the masc. and fem. form.

c. Compounds having nouns of the second division as final member are common only from derivatives in ; and these shorten the final to in both masculine and neuter: thus, from  not and  progeny come the masc. and neut. stem, fem. childless. Such compounds with nouns in and  are said to be inflected in masc. and fem. like the simple words (only with  and  in acc. pl. masc.); but the examples given by the grammarians are fictitious.

d. Stems with shortened final are occasionally met with: thus,, ; and such adverbs (neut. sing. accus.) as ,. The stem is directed to be shortened to  for all genders.

368. It is convenient to give a complete paradigm, for all genders, of an adjective stem in अ. We take for the purpose पाप evil, of which the feminine is usually made in आ  in the later language, but in ई  in the older.