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Derived nominals

Sun, 04/28/2019 - 12:01 — antardhvani

There are broadly two kinds of derived nominals in Sanskrit ( see [bib]jrb1995[/bib] ):

  • Primary nominal bases -- derived from verbs by the application of kRudanta affixes. An example is 'ghnataHa' ('those who are killing') derived from the verb 'han:2:P:to kill' (see Stanza 1.35).
  • Secondary nominal bases -- derived from nominals by the addition of taddhita affixes. An example is 'pitAmahaHa' ('father of father') derived from the nominal 'pitRu' (see Stanza 1.12).

    • Note that once the above nominal base has been derived, it usually undergoes declension in a manner akin to regular nominals. However, we will see in some cases, that we may need to know the derivation history of a nominal in order to determine the correct declension.