Accent in Declension.

314. As a rule without exception, the vocative, if accented at all, is accented on the first syllable.

And in the Veda (the case is a rare one), whenever a syllable written as one is to be pronounced as two by restoration of a semivowel to vowel form, the first element only has the vocative accent, and the syllable as written is circumflex (by 84a): thus, dyaùs (i. e. díāus) when dissyllabic, but dyuús when monosyllabic; jyake when for jake.

But the vocative is beginning of a sentence

accented only when it stands at the or, in verse, at the beginning also of a metrical division or pada; elsewhere it is accentless or enclitic thus, ágne yám yajñám paribhúr ási (RV.), 'O Agni! whatever offering thou protectest'; but úpa tva 'gna é 'masi (RV.), 'unto thee, Agni, we come'.

A word qualifying a vocative usually an adjective, but not seldom also a noun in the genitive (very rarely in any other case) constitutes, so far as accent is concerned, a unity with it: thus, súkhe vaso or váso sakhe, 'excellent friend'; súno sahasaḥ or sáhasaḥ sūno, 'oh son of might'; and sudīti sūno sahaso didihi (RV.), 'with excellent brightness, son of might, shine forth'. Two coordinate vocatives, whether noun or adjective, have usually the same accent; but the Vedic texts furnish not a few irregular exceptions to this rule. For brevity, the vocative dual and plural will be given in the paradigms below along with the nominative, without taking the trouble to specify in each instance that, if the latter be accented elsewhere than on the first syllable, the accent of the vocative is different.

315. As regards the other cases, rules for change of accent in declension have to do only with monosyllables and with stems of more than one syllable which are accented on the final; for if a stem be accented on the penult, or any other syllable further back as in sárpant, vári, bhágavant, sumánas, sahásravāja – the accent remains upon that syllable through the whole inflection (except in the vocative, as explained in the preceding paragraph).

The only exceptions are a few numeral stems: see below, chap. VI. 316. Stems accented on the final (including monosyllables) are subject to variation of accent in declension chiefly in virtue of the fact that some of the endings have, while others have not, or have in less degree, a tendency to draw the accent forward upon themselves. Thus :

a. The endings of the nominative and accusative singular and dual and of the nominative plural have no tendency to take the accent away from the stem, and are therefore only accented when a final vowel of the stem and the vowel of the ending are blended together into a single vowel or diphthong. Thus, from dattá come dattāú =dattú+un) and dattás (= dattá +as); but from nadi come nadyaù (=nadí +āu) and nadyùs (=nadi+as).

Whitney, Grammar.

7

b. All the other endings sometimes take the accent; but those beginning with a vowel do so more readily than those beginning with a consonant. Thus, from niús come nāvá and năubhís; from mahint, however, come mahatá but mahidbhis.

The general rules of accent, then, may be thus stated:

317. In the declension of monosyllabic stems, the accent falls upon the ending in all the weak cases without distinction of middle and weakest, thus, nāvá, nāubhyẩm, nāvẩm, nāuṣú; raci, vāgbhis, rācām, rākṣú.

But some monosyllabic stems retain the accent throughout: thus, gébhis, gárām, góņu. For such cases, see below, 350, 381 c, d, 375, 390, 427. 318. Of polysyllables ending in consonants, only a few shift the accent to the ending, and that in the weakest not the middle, cases. Such are:

a. Present participles in ant or át: thus, from tudánt, tudatá and tudatós and tudatám; but tudádbhyam and tudítsu.

b. A few adjectives having the form of such participles, as mahatá, byhatás.

c. Bases of which the accented final loses its syllabic character by syncopation of the vowel: thus, majjñá, mūrdhné, dūmnús from majján etc. : 423. Other sporadic cases will be noticed under the different declensions. Case forms used adverbially sometimes show a changed accent: see chap. XVI. (1110 ff..

319. Of polysyllabic stems ending in accented short vowels, the final of the stem retains the accent if it retains its syllabic identity thus, datténa and dattaya from dattá; agnina and agnáye from agni; and also dattébhyas, agnibhis, and so on. Otherwise, the accent is on the ending: and that, whether the final and the ending are combined into one, as in dattāis, dhenāú, agnin, dhenus, and so on; or whether the final is changed into a semivowel before the ending: thus, dhenvá, pitrá.

But am of the gen. pl. from stems in í and ú and ṛ may, and in the older language always does, take the accent, though separated by ʼn from the stem: thus, agninám, dhenūnám, pitṛṇám. In RV., even derivative i-stems show usually the same shift: thus, bahvinám. Of stems in 4, only numerals (chap. VI.) follow this rule: thus, saptānim, daçānām.

320. Root-words in i and u as final members of compounds retain the accent throughout, not shifting it to any of the endings. And in the older language there are polysyllabic words in long final vowels which follow in this respect as in others the analogy of the root-declension below, 355 m.). Apart from these, the treatment of stems in derivative long vowels is, as regards accent, the same as of those in short vowels save that the tone is not thrown forward upon the ending in gen. plural.

CHAPTER V.

NOUNS AND ADJECTIVES.

321. THE accordance in inflection of substantive and adjective stems is so complete that the two cannot be separated in treatment from one another.

They may be classified, for convenience of description, as follows:

I. Stems in Яa;

II. Stems in i and 3 u;

III. Stems in a, i, and u: namely, A. radicalstems (and a few others inflected like them); B. derivative stems;

IV. Stems in ? (or ar);

V. Stems in consonants.

There is nothing absolute in this classification and arrangement; it is merely believed to be open to as few objections as any other. No general agreement has been reached among scholars as to the number and order of Sanskrit declensions. The stems in a are here treated first because of the great predominance of the class.

There are,

unless we

322. The division-line between substantive and adjective, always an uncertain one in early Indo-European language, is even more wavering in Sanskrit than elsewhere. however, in all the declensions as divided above except the stems in or ar words which are distinctly adjectives; and, in general, they are inflected precisely like nounstems of the same final: only, among consonant-stems, there are certain sub-classes of adjective bases with peculiarities of inflection to which there is among nouns nothing corresponding. But there are also two considerable classes of adjective-compounds, requiring special notice; namely:

323. Compound adjectives having as final member a bare verbal root, with the value of a present participle: thus, su-dṛç, 'well-looking'; pra-búdh, 'foreknowing'; a-drúh, 'not hating'; vedavid, 'Veda-knowing'; vṛtra-hán, 'Vritra-slaying'; upastha-sád, 'sitting in the lap'. Every root is liable to be used in this

་

way, and such compounds are not infrequent in all ages of the language: see chapter on Compounds, below (XVIII.).

This class is originally and essentially only a special class of compound adjectives, since in the earliest Veda the simple as well as the compounded root was sometimes used adjectively. But the compounded root was from the beginning much more often so used, and the later the more exclusively, so that practically the class is a separate and important one.

324. Compound adjectives having a noun as final member, but obtaining an adjective sense secondarily, by having the idea of 'possession' added, and being inflected as adjectives in the three genders. Thus, prajākāma, 'desire of progeny', becomes an adjective meaning 'desirous (i. e. having desire) of progeny'; sabhārya (sa+bhāryā), 'having one's wife along; and so on.

In a few cases, also, the final noun is syntactically object of the preceding member: thus, atimātra, 'immoderate' (ati mātram, 'beyond measure'); yāvayúddveṣas, 'driving away enemies'.

325. Hence, under each declension, we have to notice how a root or a noun-stem of that declension is inflected when final member of an adjective compound.

As to accent, it needs only to be remarked that a monosyllabic word ending a compound loses the peculiarity of monosyllabic accentuation, and does not throw the tone foward upon the ending.

Declension I.

Stems (masculine and neuter) in a.

326. This declension contains the majority of all the declined stems of the language.

Its endings deviate more widely than any others from the normal.

327. Endings: Singular. The nom. masc. has the normal ending s.

The acc. (masc. and neut.) adds m (not am); and this form has the office also of nom, neuter.

The instr. changes a to ena uniformly in the later language; and even in the oldest Vedic this is the predominant ending (in RV., eight ninths of all cases). Its final is in Vedic verse not infrequently made long (enu), where favored by the metre. But the normal ending ā thus, yajñá, suhúvā,

mahitvá (for yajñéna etc.)

is also not rare in the Veda.

The dat. has aya (as if by adding aya to a), alike in all ages of the language.

The abl. has t (or more probably d: it is impossible from the evidence

of the Sanskrit to tell which is the original form of the ending), before which a is made long: this ending is found in no other noun declension, but only in the personal pronouns (of all numbers).

The gen. has sya added to the final a; and this ending is also limited to a-stems (with the single exception of the pronoun amúsya: chap. VII.). Its final a is in only three cases made long in the Veda; and its y is vocalized (asia) almost as rarely.

The loc. ends in e (as if by combining the normal ending i with the final of the stem), without exception.

The voc. is the bare stem.

328. Dual. The dual endings in general are the normal ones.

The nom., acc., and voc. masc. end in the later language always in au. In the Veda, however, the usual ending is simple (in RV., in seven eighths of the occurrences). The same cases in the neut. end in e, which appears to be the result of fusion of the stem-final with the normal ending i.

The instr., dat., and abl. have bhyām (in only one or two Vedic instances resolved into bhiām), with the stem-fiual lengthened to a before it.

The gen. and loc. have a y inserted after the stem-final before os (or as if the a had been changed to e). In one or two (doubtful) Vedic instances (as also in the pronominal forms enos and yos), os is substituted for the final a.

329. Plural. The nom. masc. has in the later language the normal ending as combined with the final a to as. But in the Veda the ending āsas instead is frequent (one third of the occurrences in RV., but only one twenty-fifth in the peculiar parts of AV.).

The acc. masc. ends in an (for earlier ans, of which abundant traces are left in the Veda, and, under the disguise of apparent euphonic combination, even in the later language: see above, 208 ff.).

The nom. and acc. neut. have in the later language always the ending āni (like the an-stems: see 421; or else with n as in the gen. pl. before normal i). But in the Veda this ending alternates with simple a (which in RV is to ani as three to two, in point of frequency; in AV., as three to four).

The instr. ends later always in ais; but in the Veda is found abundantly the more normal form ebhis (in RV., nearly as frequent as ais; in AV., only one fifth as frequent).

The dat. and abl. have bhyas as ending, with e instead of the final a before it (as in the Vedic instr. ebhis, the loc. pl., the gen. loc. du. [?], and the instr. sing.). The resolution into ebhias is not infrequent in the Veda.

The gen. ends in ānām, the final a being lengthened and having n inserted before the normal ending. The a of the ending is not seldom (in less than half the instances) to be read as two syllables, aam: opinions are divided as to whether the resolution is historical or metrical only. A very small number (half-a-dozen) of examples of simple am as ending instead of ānām occur in RV.