THE DECLENSION OF NOUNS 252 in the various languages (Hitt, sallis ' great a$£u$ 9 good Gk. ttoXvs much Lith. lipus ' sticky Goth kaurus ' heavy etc.). Their origin is to be sought in the fact that in the mas- culine and feminine 1- and -w-stems two classes have coalesced. To the adjectival class consisting of adjectives proper (puru-, etc.) and nouns of adjectival type (. siinu etc.) there has been added a large class of action nouns (gdti-, situ etc.) which were transferred at an early period from the neuter class. This in- volved the adding of the case terminations -s, -m in the nom. acc. sg. on the analogy of the thematic stems, thus producing a type ending in -is, -im, -us, -um. In the amalgamation of the two classes in a common masc.-fem. declension, this type of formation in the nom. -acc. is generalised, but in the dat. and gen. sg. the formation proper to the adjectival type is general- ised {gates after agnds, etc.). The type of inflection prevalent in i- and n-stems in Sanskrit appears also in other IE languages : cf. gen. sg. Goth, anstais, sunaus , Lith. naktes , siinaus , dat. sg. O. SI. synovi. In Hittite and Greek the forms of the gen. sg. with non-reduced termina- tion (Hitt, sallaias , as taw as, Gk. o<f>eo$, iJSeo?) may be regarded as innovations replacing this type. In the locative singular the - au of the w-stems (sunau) has been introduced into the x-stems {agnail), but the Vedic lan- guage also has agni (he. agnd(i)). The locative without ending appears also in other IE languages (Goth, anstai , sunau, 0 . SL synu, etc.), but it is not possible to determine whether a long or short diphthong is represented in these cases. The special feminine terminations in the dat., gen.-abl. and loc. sg. {gdtydi, -as, -dm ; dhenvai, -as, -dm) are adapted from the t-declension. They are still rare in the RV. but become very common in the later pre-classical literature. The grammarians allow optionally in the case of feminine nouns either these ter- minations gdtyai, etc.) or the common masc.-fem. terminations (gataye, etc.). §8. Stems in d, %, u - d : Sg. N. sdnd, A. sdndm, I. sdnayd, D. sdndyai, G. Ab. sdndyds , L. sdndydm , V. sine ; I)u. N.A.V. sine, I.D. Abl. sdndbhydm , G.L. sdnayos, PI, N.A.V. sinds , I. sdndbhis , D. Ab, sdnabhyas, G. sdndndm, L. sdnasu. -f ; (A) Sg. N. vrkfs , A. vrkydm, I. vrkyd, D. vrkyd , Ab. G.
