Page:Sanskrit Grammar by Whitney p1.djvu/466

 b. Examples of masculine abstracts are: favor,  strength,  conquest,  sweetness,  impulse.

c. Corresponding neuter action-nouns and masculine agent-nouns are: worship and  priest;  gift and  giver;  rule and  orderer;  seat and  sitter. But friend stands in the contrary relation to  m. favor. Very few other agent-nouns occur; and all, except, are of rare occurrence.

d. On the other hand, and  and  (and ) have the difference of gender and accent without a corresponding difference of meaning.

e. The noun stone, though masculine, is accented on the radical syllable; and two or three other questionable cases of the same kind occur.

f. The derivatives in used as infinitives (974) have for the most part the accent of neuters: the only exception is.

g. A few words, of either class, have an irregular root-form: thus,, or ,  earth,  abundance, , , , , , , ; and , ,.

h. Derivatives in from roots with prefixes are not numerous. They are usually accented on the prefix, whether action-nouns or adjectives: thus, forthbringing,  departure;  following after: the exceptions,, , , are perhaps of possessive formation.

2. i. The same suffix, though only with its abstract-making value, has in a number of cases before it a union-vowel, or ; and  comes to be used as a secondary suffix, forming abstract nouns (masculine) from a considerable number of adjectives.

j. The neuters in and  are primary formations, belonging almost only to the older language: thus,,  (M.),  (beside , as noticed above); and , ,  (and  SV., once), , , , , , and. Those in are hardly met with outside the Rig-Veda.

k. The masculines in are in the oldest language less frequent than the neuters just described: they are  (?),, , ,  (beside the equivalent  and ),  (beside the equivalent  and ), , and  (VS.) beside  (V.B.). Some of these, as well as of the derivatives in simple, attach themselves in meaning, or in form also, to adjectives, to which they seem the accompanying abstracts: compare the similar treatment of the primary comparatives and superlatives (above, 468): such are (to ,  etc.);  etc. (to , , etc.);  etc. (to ,