240 THE DECLENSION OF NOUNS which arose in this class. The shorter termination -om has been generalized in Slavonic (>u f mdteru, imenu). t and also probably in Latin ( hominum ), where it appears unnecessary to assume that -um has developed out of an earlier form with a long vowel. A variant £-grade of this formative appears in Gothic only {wulfe, suniwe). The Sanskrit vocalic stems are characterised by an -n- inserted before the termination, and the Avestan de- clension agrees with this system with the exception of the stems in -r. The only agreement elsewhere is in Germanic, in the tf-stems (OHG. gebono 4 of the gifts ’) and it is likely that the inserted - n - began in this class and from there spread to the other vocalic classes. Locative Plural. The Sanskrit termination -su (patsu) appears also in Iranian, Slavonic (-chuCsu) and dialectically in Lithuanian. In Greek on the other hand the termination is -<n {ttogoI, etc.). This variation indicates that the termination is analysable into two elements, on the one hand s+w and on the other hand s+i. The s can be identified as the plural s which appears in other cases, to which the further elements Land u are added in the two types. The -i of Greek is apparently to be identified with the -i of the locative singular, and the -u of the other languages in an alternative suffix performing the same function. The case would thus originally be formed by the addition of plural -$ to the endingless form of the loc. sg. (in thematic stems to the loc. sg, in -oi), and the addition of i and u is secondary, just as is the addition of -i in the loc. sg, Nom . Voc. Acc . Dual. This case was made by various form- atives in IE, according to the type of stem. The ending - au , -a of Sanskrit was originally, from the evidence of the related lan- guages, confined to the thematic stems (Gk. Xvkoj, Lith. vilku , O. SI. vluka) from which in Sanskrit it has been extended to other types of stem (pddau, pitdrau , etc,). In these latter classes Greek and Lithuanian have an ending - e [fi^Tepc, auguse ). It has been suggested that this termination, elsewhere replaced by - au in Sanskrit, is preserved in the dual dvandva matara- pitarau 4 parents ’ which the grammarians quote as a northern form. The termination is regularly - au in classical Sanskrit, but in the Vedic language it varies between -au and d. As a general rule -au is used before vowels, becoming ~av, elsewhere a. Some such variation must go back to the IE period, and it is the latter form which has been generalised in the related languages.
