THE FORMATION OF NOUNS 131 are f ormed _jV'ith thi s suffix ; davdne * to give * (Gk. SoFevcu, Sourai) turvdne ' to overcome dhUrvane 1 to injure ' ; simi- larly in Av. vidvanoi ' to know A suffix compounded of i and r appears only in the adverb bdhir ' outside A few defective in-stems appear in the Rgveda in the instrum, sg., namely prathina , mahind, varina . These forms, in origin old neuter in-stems, have been attracted to the paradigm of the masc. man - stems praihimdn - f width mahi- mdn- 1 greatness 7 and varimdn- ‘ width and so preserved. The neuter suffix -in further compounded with v appears in sfkvin- nt. comer of the mouth The compound suffixes m-er t m-en alternated in the same way, but outside Iiittite, mer (mr) is rare and obsolescent. A fair number of examples can be collected from Greek (Avpap, Avparos ' impurity etc.) but they exist only as survivals. No examples are found in Sanskrit but their one time existence in Indo-Iranian is shown by adjectival derivatives like admar-d
- gluttonous 7 based on an old *ddmar * eating, food Such
forms have been entirely replaced by the extension of the man- stem to the nom. acc. sg. The neuter suffix man is the only one of the rjn suffixes that remained fully productive in languages other than Hittite. Examples are : (nom. acc. sg.) djma ‘ career, march ' (: Lat. agmen), karma 1 deed ’, cdrma * skin paksma ' eyelash pdtma
- flight brahma ' prayer bhdrma 1 maintaining, supporting ;
load ' (: O. SI. brem% ‘ burden ', Gk. pepfia), vdsma 1 garment ' (: Gk, ef/xa 'id', Lesb. Fe/i/xa), loma t roma ' hair ' (<J lu cf, lava - 'fleece, wool, hair 1 ), mdnma 'thought' (: 0. Ir, menme ' mind, understanding '), vdrma * protective armour vdrtma 1 course, way ' (0. SI. vremg ' time y ) sddma ' seat syuma ' thong, rein svddma ' sw r eetness A small number of dative infinitives are formed on the basis of this suffix : trimane ‘ to protect ', dimane ' to give dhar- mane ' to support bhdrmane ' to maintain vidmdne ' to know In Greek infinitives are also made with this suffix, much more abundantly, and including an archaic type without termination ; Igiev ' to go Softtv ' to give ' ; iSfievai ' to eat tfjLcvcu ' to go So/xeycu ' to give ', etc. The nouns of this class are primarily verbal abstracts (action nouns), but they show a strong tendency to acquire concrete meanings, as happens with other neuter abstracts : e.g. hdnma
