Page:Sanskrit Grammar by Whitney p1.djvu/197

 passages the is usually changed to. It was pointed out above (425 g) that the RV. makes the voc. in also apparently from a few -stems.

C. In RV., the nom. etc. pl. neut., in the only two instances that occur, ends in instead of : thus,,. No such forms have been noted elsewhere in the older language: the SV. reads in its version of the corresponding passages, and a few examples of the same ending are quotable from the Brāhmaṇas: thus,, , , , , ,. Compare 448, 451.

d. In a few (eight or ten) more or less doubtful cases, a confusion of strong and weak forms of stem is made; they are too purely sporadic to require reporting. The same is true of a case or two where a masculine form appears to be used with a feminine noun.

455. The stem running, steed, has the nom. sing. , from ; and in the older language also the voc. and accus. .

456. Besides the participle, there is another stem , frequently used in respectful address as substitute for the pronoun of the second person (but construed, of course, with a verb in the third person), which is formed with the suffix , and so declined, having in the nom. sing, ; and the contracted form of its old-style vocative  is a common exclamation of address: you, sir!  Its origin has been variously explained; but it is doubtless a contraction of.

457. The pronominal adjectives, , , and the Vedic , , , etc., are inflected like ordinary derivatives from nouns.

458. The active participles of the perfect tense-system are quite peculiar as regards the modifications of their stem. In the strong cases, including the nom.-acc.-voc. pl. neut., the form of their suffix is वांस्, which becomes, by regular process (150), in the nom. sing., and which shortened to वन्  in the voc. sing. In the weakest cases, the suffix is contracted into उष्. In the middle cases, including the nom.-acc.-voc. neut. sing., it is changed to वत्.

a. A union-vowel, if present in the strong and middle cases, disappears in the weakest, before.