336. Endings: Singular. a. The nom. masc. and fem. adds to the stem the normal ending s. The nom. and acc. neut. is the bare stem, without ending. In the Veda, the final u of a few neuters is lengthened (248 b): thus, urū́, purū́.
b. The acc. masc. and fem. adds m to the stem. Vedic forms in iam and uam, and, with n, inam and unam, are excessively rare, and doubtful.
c. The instr. fem. in the later language takes the normal ending ā simply, while the masc. and neut. insert n before it, making inā and unā. But in the Veda, forms in yā and vā (or iā and uā) are not infrequent in masc. and neut. also; while inā is found, very rarely, as a fem. ending. Moreover, fem. yā is often (in two thirds of the occurrences) contracted to ī; and this is even sometimes shortened to i. An adverbial instr. in uyā́ from half-a-dozen stems in u occurs.
d. The dat. masc. and fem. gunates the final of the stem before the ending e, making aye and ave. These are the prevailing endings in the Veda likewise; but the more normal ye and ve (or ue) also occur; and the fem. has in this case, as in the instr., sometimes the form ī for ie. In the later language, the neuter is required in this, as in all the other weakest cases, to insert n before the normal ending: but in the Veda such forms are only sporadic; and the neut. dat. has also the forms aye, ve, ave, like the other genders.
e. The abl. and gen. masc. and fem. have regularly, both earlier and later, the ending s with gunated vowel before it: thus, es, os; and in the Veda, the neut. forms the cases in the same way; although unas, required later, is also not infrequent (inas does not occur). But the normal forms yas (or ias) and vas (or uas) are also frequent in both masc. and neuter. As masc. ending, unas occurs twice in RV. The anomalous didyót (so TS.; in the corresponding passages, vidyót VS., didyāut K., didivás MS.) is of doubtful character.
f. The loc. masc. and fem. has for regular ending in the later language āu, replacing both finals, i and u. And this is in the Veda also the most frequent ending; but, beside it, the i-stems form (about half as often in RV.) their loc. in ā: thus, agnā́; and this is found once even in the neuter. The RV. has a number of examples of masc. and neut. locatives in avi (the normal ending and the u gunated before it) from u-stems; and certain doubtful traces of a corresponding ayi from i-stems. Half-a-dozen locatives in ī (regarded by the Vedic grammarians as pragṛhya or uncombinable: 138 d) are made from i-stems. The later language makes the neuter locatives in ini and uni; but the former never occurs in the oldest texts, and the latter only very rarely.
g. The later grammar allows the dat., abl.-gen., and loc. fem. to be formed at will with the fuller fem. terminations of long-vowel stems, namely āi, ās (for which, in Brāhmaṇa etc., āi is substituted: 307 h), ām. Such forms are quite rare in the oldest language even from i-stems (less than 40 occurrences altogether in RV.; three times as many in AV.); and from u-stems they are almost unknown (five in RV. and AV.).
