126 THE FORMATION OF NOUNS the root stem °vdh-, nom. sg. °vat, acc. sg. °vdham) sdha- * victor- ious ' (cf. °sdh-), tidy a- 1 leader grdbhd- ‘ seizer etc. The agent nouns of this type are on the decline, and as hap- pens elsewhere in the same circumstances, many such stems are no longer used as independent nouns, but only as the last mem- bers of compounds : e.g. °add- ‘ eater 1 ( annddd - ' eater of food'), °gamd- 'going' ( duramgama - ‘going far*), Q gard- ‘swallower* (ajagard- ' goat swallower*, i.e. python), °ghnd-
- slaying ' ( goghna - ' slayer of cows *) . This is because the for-
mation which came to be normally used in making agent nouns was that in -tar , and this tended to oust other formations in ordinary free use. In contrast the tar- formations were not capable of being used in composition, so there is a dichotomy of the type dnnasyd ~ atti : annddd- ' eater of food In a small number of nouns of this type the accent has been secondarily transferred to the root. Such are vfka - ' wolf visa - ‘ server Such transference is common in nominalised adjectives through- out the system. The adjectives sdna- ' old * and ndva- 4 new * can be fitted into neither of the above classes. From the corresponding forms in other languages (Gk. v£os 4 new' Lith. senas 4 old etc.) it can be seen that they are distinguished from other thematic stems by having the radical <?-grade and from the adjectival type by having radical accentuation. This is because they are based on old root stems new-, sen-, which were adjectives by meaning from the beginning, and consequently the thematic vowel here is merely an extension of the stem, as in the action nouns, and not meaningful as in the usual oxytone thematic adjectival type. In Latin the root stem sen- is still used outside the nom. sg. ( senex , senem, senis). Both types of the above nouns are masculines. Feminine agent nouns such as are found in Greek (17 6&6s 4 way *, ij rpo<f>6$ 4 nurse *) are non-existent in Sanskrit, which in this respect is less archaic than Greek. The masculine gender of these action- nouns is in contrast to the neuter gender of the various thematic action nouns derived by extension from the various neuter suffixes to be mentioned later. This is because the root nouns, at least those ending in occlusives developed early the distinc- tion between nom. and acc. and used -s in the nom, sg. That is to say they were ' common gender*, and the thematic deriva- tives based on them automatically acquired the same gender,
