THE FORMATION OF NOUNS 121 Sanskrit are primary, are in origin secondary formation. Thus udrd - 1 otter ' which counts as a primary derivative (ud-rd-) is clearly in origin a secondary derivative meaning ' connected with water, water- animal ’ ( udr-a cf. Gk. vSwp n. ‘ water etc,). In origin all types of such thematic adjectival derivation are secondary, but owing to the obsolescence of the old neuter action nouns on which they were based they acquired the nature of primary derivatives. In so far as such suffixes re- mained living suffixes, they were employed as units in the later period in a primary way. Not all formations in -ra have the same history as udr-a etc,, but the type of derivation came into existence in this way. Again in the old IE dichotomy of the types brahma : brahmA we have in the second of these pairs a type of secondary deriva- tion. Logically and presumably historically the neuter action noun precedes the agent noun. The form brahma ' one connected with brahma * presupposes by its meaning the existence of the more primitive neuter. In the Sanskrit system such agent noun formations count as primary formations, and this is what the majority have become owing to the disappearance of the corres- ponding neuter types. This is illustrated very well by the agent nouns in -tar ( ddtar - ‘ giver etc.). Hittite has nouns in - tar but only neuter action nouns. It is clear that the relation be- tween the two types is the same as that between brahma and brahmA and that ddtar - was originally ‘ one connected with giving J corresponding to an obsolete n d&tar n. ' giving When the neuter type went out of use it became a primary formation connected directly to the verbal root. In the development of the system of nominal stem formation in the prehistoric period, certain general tendencies , will be observed, notably : (i) The^decline^of The neu ters. Whole categories of neuter nouns with ancient IE suffixes such as -er and -el have become almost extinct in most IE languages except Hittite ; but the letters r and l play a great part in IE nominal derivation, so that although the original types have disappeared, they have left great masses of further derivatives winch cannot be explained without them. In other cases the old neuter nouns have not dis- appeared, but have been transferred bodily to the masculine and feminine classes. This is particularly the case with stems in i and u, and the action nouns in -d } but it occurs frequently elsewhere*
