-a stems

In the previous lesson, we learned about the basic endings that nominal stems use. Different stem families will change these endings in small ways.

Of all of the stem families, the one that changes them the most is the family of -a stems (akārantāni, “ending in -a”). Stems in this family are either masculine or neuter.

Most of Sanskrit's nominal stems end in the vowel -a, so it's important to know this family well. Does that mean you should memorize these endings? No. Just focus on their general patterns.

Masculine endings

First, let's study the 24 masculine endings for the -a stem. Let's use the masculine noun stem gaja, which means “elephant”:

In the singular, the endings we use are very different from the basic nominal endings. Here is a comparison:

• मनसा → गजेन
  manasā → gajena
  

• मनसे → गजाय
  manase → gajāya
  

• मनसः → गजात्
  manasaḥ → gajāt
  

• मनसः → गजस्य
  manasaḥ → gajasya
  

Thankfully, the endings in the dual and plural are mostly similar to the basic endings.

Neuter endings

In the previous lesson, we learned that neuter endings and masculine endings are usually very similar. For the -a stems, the endings differ only in cases 1, 2, and 8.

Here is the neuter noun phala in cases 1, 2, and 8. In all other cases, phala uses the same endings as gaja:

These words follow the basic pattern we learned about in the previous lesson. Specifically, notice that the dual forms follow normal sandhi rules:

• फल + ई → फले
  phala + ī → phale
  

And that the word phalāni lengthens its vowel and uses an extra nasal sound, just as we saw with manāṃsi:

• मनस् + इ → मनांसि
  manas + i → manāṃsi
  

• फल + इ → फलानि
  phala + i → phalāni
  

However, one small change is that the singular of cases 1 and 2 uses the ending -m:

• फल + म् → फलम्
  phala + m → phalam
  

Sandhi changes

Some of the noun endings above use the consonant sound n. If n is not at the end of a word, it might change due to a complex sandhi rule:

• ग्रामेन → ग्रामेण
  grāmena → grāmeṇa
  with the village
  

• विषेन → विषेण
  viṣena → viṣeṇa
  with poison
  

Roughly, the rule is that the letters r and ṣ causes n to change to ṇ. This change can occur even if the two sounds are separated by vowels, “lip” consonants like p and m, and a few others.

Review

a is the most common vowel in Sanskrit, and the -a stems are the most common stem family. In the next few lessons, we'll learn about the other stem families.

1. Many of the endings used by the -a stem have multiple meanings. Give an example of one of these endings. What meanings can it express?

2. In the -a family, masculine and neuter endings are often identical. Which five cases are identical for both genders?