MacDonnell II - Wilbourhall.org

89-90] STEMS IN AN, MAN, VAN G7ok-i-van ' (uc be ivoni).This i is dropped before us ; e. g.tasth-us-a, iy-us-as, jagm-iis-e.90. 2. Nouns in an, man, van include a large numberof words, those in van being by far the commonest, thosein an the least frequent. These stems are almost restricted'"to m. and n. ;but some forms of adjective stems serve as f.,and there is one specificallyf. stem yos-an tvomnn.In the strong cases the a of the suffix is visually lengthened,e. g. adiivan-am ;but in half a dozen an and man stems itremains unchanged, e. g. arya-man-am. In the weak casesthe a is often syncopated before vowel endings, thoughnever when man and van are preceded by a consonant,e. g. I. s. gravna from gravan pressing stone (but as-man-astone), while before consonant endings the final n disappears,^e.g. raja-bhis. In the RV. syncopation never takes placein the N.A. du. n., nor with one exception (sata-davni)in the L. s.As in all other n stems, the nasal is dropped in the N. s.,e. g. m. adhva, n. karma. But there are two peculiaritiesof inflexion which, being common to these three groups, donot appear elsewhere in the consonant declension. Theending of the L. s. is in the EV. dropped more often thannot ;e. g.miirdhan beside murdhan-i on the head. In theN.A. pi. n. both the final n of the stem and the termination iare, in the RV., dropped in nineteen stems, e.g. karma;*while they are retained in eighteen, e. g. karmani.1. The an stems, which are both m. and n.," besides the1 With reversion to guttural, lack of reduplication, and strengthenedradical vowel.2The stems in an and man form their f. with i added to theirweakest form ;those in van substitute vari.°That is, the a represents an original sonant nasal.*Seven of these appear with a in the Samhita text, but with a, likethe rest, in the Pada text.the a form of the Samhita is the older.^Six or seven adjectival forms ai-e used as f.f2The evidence of the Avesta indicates that