Page:Sanskrit Grammar by Whitney p1.djvu/197

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

C. In RV., the nom. etc. pl. neut., in the only two instances that occur, ends in ānti instead of anti: thus, ghṛtávānti, paçumā́nti. No such forms have been noted elsewhere in the older language: the SV. reads anti in its version of the corresponding passages, and a few examples of the same ending are quotable from the Brāhmaṇas: thus, tāvanti, etā́vanti, yā́vanti, ghṛtávanti, pravanti, ṛtumanti, yugmanti. 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 árvant running, steed, has the nom. sing. árvā, from árvan; and in the older language also the voc. arvan and accus. árvāṇam.

456. Besides the participle bhávant, there is another stem bhávant, 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 vant, and so declined, having in the nom. sing, bhávān; and the contracted form bhos of its old-style vocative bhavas is a common exclamation of address: you, sir! Its origin has been variously explained; but it is doubtless a contraction of bhágavant.

457. The pronominal adjectives tā́vant, etā́vant, yā́vant, and the Vedic ī́vant, mā́vant, tvā́vant, etc., are inflected like ordinary derivatives from nouns.

F. Perfect Participles in vāṅs.

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 vāṅs, which becomes, by regular process (150), vān in the nom. sing., and which i [errata 1] shortened to वन् van in the voc. sing. In the weakest cases, the suffix is contracted into उष् uṣ. In the middle cases, including the nom.-acc.-voc. neut. sing., it is changed to वत् vat.

  1. Correction: i should be amended to is: detail

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