The Cambridge Introduction to Sanskrit

Ā-STEM NOUNS

Chapter 6 introduced a-stem nouns, which were all of either masculine or neuter gender. ā-stem (read ‘long-a stem’) nouns, on the other hand, are exclusively feminine. The endings of ā-stems differ from those of a-stems and thus need to be memorised separately. In spite of the formal differences, the meanings/functions of each case are identical to those of a-stems.

Remember that feminine gender is a grammatical category and does not imply that all ā-stem nouns refer to biological females. (Yet the reverse is the case: most words for biological females are grammatically feminine.)

Note:

• – The long stem-final -ā is visible throughout most of the paradigm (but note the INSTR SG सेनया, rather than +सेनाया, and also the GENLOC DU सेनयोः). Stem-final -ā (or, more generally, stem-final long vowels) is a clear sign that a noun is feminine (–› Chapter 13 on ī- and ū-stem nouns).

• – The case endings in the dual and plural are largely identical to those of a-stems (but note the NOMVOCACC DU AND INSTR PL), thus reducing the number of new forms that need to be memorised. Note the LOC PL ending -su (not -ṣu, as in the a-stems): the reason for this difference will be explained below (‘Retroflexion of s’).

ADJECTIVES

As described in the Road Map on Nominals (Chapter 5), adjectives are words that describe qualities: small, smart, green, old etc. As mentioned in Chapter 6, Sanskrit adjectives have different forms for the three different genders that Sanskrit nouns can belong to: masculine, feminine and neuter. A large number of adjectives in Sanskrit are a-stems. This means that their masculine forms look identical to those of masculine a-stem nouns (such as नर- ‘man’) and their neuter forms identical to those of neuter a-stem nouns (such as वन- ‘forest’). Their feminine forms usually follow the forms of ā-stem nouns, making a typical a-stem adjective paradigm such as प्रिय- ‘dear’ look as follows:

(The feminine forms of some a-stem adjectives take not ā-stem, but ī-stem endings, which are introduced in Chapter 13.)