Secondary Suffixes

Also known as: taddhita-pratyaya (a special kind of suffix)

Introduction

Now we will study the secondary suffixes. These suffixes act on anything but verb roots. Secondary suffixes can be applied to nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and (sometimes) inflected verbs and complete sentences.

Changes in the final vowel

This rule is practically universal:

If the secondary suffix starts with a vowel or y, then the -a nouns lose their final vowel.

In this lesson, we will also consider a few of the -u nouns. Such nouns, as you might guess, have stems that end in -u. (We will not study the endings of these nouns, but we will learn how they are used with the secondary suffixes.) The -u nouns follow this rule:

If the secondary suffix starts with a vowel or y, then the -u of the -u nouns becomes av.

Review: what do we need to know?

As before, we must know a few things about the suffixes we're using. To review, we must know the following:

• The new noun's gender
• The nature of the new noun
• The vowel change that the suffix causes

Now, here is a summary of the suffixes:

-a

The meaning of the -a suffix largely depends on the type of noun it modifies. When used with some noun X, it usually means "coming from X." The first vowel is always strengthened to the strongest level.

• पुत्र → पौत्र

  putra → pautra

  son, child → "coming from a son," a grandson

  कुरु → कौरव

  kuru → kaurava

  Kuru (Arjuna's ancestor) → "coming from Kuru," a descendant of Kuru

Most of the nouns formed with this suffix are masculine, but many of them are ordinary adjectives. Thus pautra can be either a masculine noun ("grandson") or an adjective ("coming from a son").

-aka

-aka is usually used to show smallness, but it often also describes the material from which something is made.

• पुत्र → पुत्रक

  putra → putraka

  son, child → little son, darling son

• अश्व → अश्वक

  aśva → aśvaka

  horse → little horse, colt

-tva

-tva changes some noun X into "the quality of being X." In this way, it means the same thing as the English "-ness" suffix:

• कृष्ण → कृष्णत्व

  kṛṣṇa → kṛṣṇatva

  black → blackness

-maya

-maya changes some noun X into "consisting of X" or "being made of X."

• आनन्द → आनन्दमय

  ānanda → ānandamaya

  bliss → consisting of bliss

-ya

The -ya suffix has various meanings. It means much the same thing as the -a suffix. But in the neuter gender, -ya usually means something like "the state of being X."

• चर् → आचर् → आचार → आचार्य

  car → ācar → ācāra → ācārya

  walk → follow a path, practice, follow → custom, rules of conduct → one who knows the ācāra [acharya]