THE DECLENSION OF NOUNS 223 cases where the accent is on the suffix and not the termination. These are the main cases where shift of accent appears in de- clension in Sanskrit. Elsewhere, and these form the majority of stems, the accent has been stabilised either on the root or on the suffix. Fixed accent on the root becomes the normal accentua- tion of neuter nouns in Sanskrit : dhdnva ' bow dhdnvanas ; ndma ' name ndmnas ; brahma ‘ prayer brdhmanas ; dmhas ' distress dmhasas ; mddhu 4 honey b mddhvas , mddhunas ; vdri 4 water b virinas. Fixed radical accent is likewise the rule in those masculine and feminine nouns which are accented on the root : bhrqtd ‘ brother b instr bhratrd ; raja 4 king gen. r&jnas ; bhdvan 4 being b bhdvatas ; gdmdn 4 possessing cows gdmatas ; avis 4 sheep b dvyas ; pdtis 4 lord b pates , paly us (husband) ; krdtus 1 wisdom b kr divas ; sdtrus 4 enemy sdtros. Thematic stems, both those accented on the root and those accented on the suffix, have invariably fixed accent both in San- skrit and Greek. The same applies to verbal thematic stems. The evidence is that in Indo-European such stems were char- acterised by fixed accent from the beginning. Fixed suffixal accent in the case of non-thematic stems appears in a number of types. It is rare in Sanskrit in the r- and «-stems, though not uncommon in Greek (noi^v voipwos, and with vrddhi carried through, Sorrjp, So rypos). Such accent only appears in Sanskrit in those «-stems in which the suffixal vowel is not elided in the weak cases : brahma , brahmdnas. On the other hand this type of accentuation has assumed great importance in the case of the i- and w-stems, where it produced a special inflection of the suffixally accented type (adjective and agent noun), which was eventually applied to all masculine and feminine nouns however accented. Inflection of the type pita : pitrd is found only in the stem sdkhi- friend , norn. sg. sdkha t dat. sg. sdkhye , but there has been a secondary shift of accent to the root which must have originally been the same in the two cases. Elsewhere in the normal type ( agnis t agnds) there is fixed radical accent, and this type must be very ancient because accent and apophony are in agreement in the gen. sg., etc. The accent causes the retention of the guna grade of the suffix in the genitive, dative ( agndye ) and nom. pi. (agnayas), and the reduction of the gen. sg. termination to -s (agnd-s). Likewise in the case of w-stems the inflection of the type vdyus 4 wind gen. sg. vdyds arises from the fixation of
