Page:Sanskrit Grammar by Whitney p1.djvu/495

 that value it still has in actual use; yet only in a small minority of occurrences. It has been, on the one hand, specialized into an element forming diminutives; and, on the other hand, and much more widely, attenuated into an element without definable value, added to a great many nouns and adjectives to make others of the same meaning — this last is, even in the Veda, and still more in the later language, its chief office.

a. Hence, easily associates itself with the finals of derivatives to which it is attached, and comes to seem along with them an integral suffix, and is further used as such. Of this origin are doubtless, as was seen above (1180, 1181), the so-called primary suffixes and ; and likewise the secondary suffix  (below, j).

b. The accent of derivatives in varies — apparently without rule, save that the words most plainly of diminutive character have the tone usually on the suffix.

c. Examples (from the older language) of words in which the suffix has an adjective-making value are:  end-making,   of Balkh,   egg-bearing,   stinging,  fruit of the gourd,   strophic; from numerals, ;  of the third day; from pronoun-stems,  ours,  yours,  mine ; from prepositions,  near,  following,  a plant (later ); and, with accent retracted to the initial syllable (besides  and , already given),   with form,  ( brown) a certain lizard. your worship's has an anomalous initial.

d. Of words in which a diminutive meaning is more or less probable: nag,  and  boy,  or  girl,  little foot,  little son,  princeling,  birdling. Sometimes a contemptuous meaning is conveyed by such a diminutive: for formations with this value from pronominal stems, see above, 521; other examples are (RV.),  (RV.: from ), and even the verb-form  (for : KB.).

e. The derivatives in with unchanged meaning are made from primitives of every variety of form, simple and compound, and have the same variety of accent as the adjective derivatives (with which they are at bottom identical). Thus:

f. From simple nouns and adjectives: home,  nostril,  fly,  ewe,  arrow,  distant,  all,   cow,   naked,   captive,  by no means different,  before