The chief innovation in the consonant-system is the introduction of the third series, the cerebrals or linguals (better termed retro flex). The dentals were formed by the tip of the tongue striking the roots of the teeth, the cerebrals by the tip of the tongue, bent backwards, striking further back on the palate. In the oldest Sanskrit they are derived from the dentals when immediately pre ceded by s or *z (which subsequently disappeared) : thus *diitas (=Lat. dictus) became *distas and then distah; *mizdham (=Gk. misthos)' became *mizdham and then midhdm. Later also under the influence of a preceding r or r dentals became cerebrals : such words are really loans from the popular dialect, but they begin to appear in the literary language even as early as the Rigveda: thus vikatah "monstrous" is derived from vikrtah "strange." Some words, however, contain cerebrals which cannot be explained as derived from dentals in either of these ways. It is probable that these sounds were characteristic of both the families of languages, Muricla and Dravidian, which the Aryan speakers of Sanskrit found in possession of India; and the appearance of them in Sanskrit and its descendants (and in a few of the adjoining Iranian languages such as Baluchi and Pashto) can scarcely be uncon nected with this fact.
The Indian grammarians emphasized the difference in the pro nunciation of consonants according as they came at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of a word or before other consonants. These differences, though slight, have ended in transforming the whole Sanskrit consonant-system in its descendants, the modern Indo-Aryan languages. Final consonants were pronounced with out being fully exploded : in the spoken languages these final con sonants had disappeared before the middle of the 3rd century B.C. A similar pronunciation is assigned to consonants before stops: in the spoken languages these were early assimilated (e.g., supt0 became sutto). y and v were pronounced more strongly initially than intervocalically: in the modern languages initial y– has remained or become j, but intervocalic –y– has been lost. [This contrast is observable even in the dialect of the Rigveda. For in the phonetically weak position of the termination and in certain accessory words intervocalic –dh– has lost its occlusion and be come –h–: ihi "go"=Greek ithi, :remake "we lie"=Gk. keimetha.
Further in all words intervocalic -d- has become although other more easterly dialects still preserve it (through whose influence it was afterwards re-established in Classical Sanskrit): thus Classical nidah "nest" (from *nigla-) is nildh in Vedic.] Accent.—Our knowledge of the accent of Sanskrit words is derived from its marking in the more important Vedic texts and from the statements of grammarians. It was predominantly a
musical or tonic, not a stress, accent. Three different types are generally distinguished, the uddtta "raised," anuatta "unraised" and svarita the rising-falling accent following the uddtta. Gen erally the position of the uthitta agrees, as far as can be ascer tained by comparison, with that of the chief word-accent of Indo European. The rhythm of Sanskrit was purely quantitative ; in verse metre depended only on the number and the length of the syllables composing a line, and was entirely independent of accent.
Nouns.—Sanskrit makes a perfect distinction between nouns (including adjectives, pronouns and indeclinables) and verbs. The declension of nouns comprises three numbers—singular dual and plural; and eight cases, viz. nominative, accusa tive, instrumental, dative, ablative, genitive, locative, vocative. In the majority of declensions ablative and genitive are not dis tinguished in the singular, nor dative and ablative in the plural, while the dual universally has only three separate forms,—( 1) nom.–acc.–voc., (2) inst.–dat.–abl., (3) gen.–loc. These con fusions were inherited from Indo-European, but the tendency to confuse still further the forms and functions of the cases con tinued within Sanskrit itself, the genitive especially enlarging its sphere at the expense of other cases. This process, continued in the spoken languages down to the present day, has resulted in a noun-declension, which for the most part consists of two cases only—(i) a direct case founded on the Sanskrit nominative and accusative; (2) an oblique case founded on the Sanskrit genitive or, perhaps, in some forms, the dative. Among the numbers the dual by itself was reserved to express natural pairs (such as aksi "the eyes," karncin "the ears"), or any two objects or persons already referred to or present in the mind of the speaker or hearer; otherwise the use of the word for "two" itself was required.
Although the idea of case was in the main expressed by the termination (as, e.g., the nominative by –s in devcis=Latin dens, the accusative by –in in devcim=deum), it was sometimes accom panied by change in the pre-terminational element, and was con nected with a shift of accent : Skt. Greek Skt. Greek Skt. Greek nom. pat pos (Doric) dydull. Zeits pita pat& acc. Wain Oda dydm Z en-a pitdram pa tera gen. paddlt podos divd.1.1 Dios pitch cf. pa tros dat. pad cf. podi dive cf. Dii pitre cf. patri loc. padi podi dydvi Lat. Jove pitciri voc. dyclu4 Zeit pitar pdter There was, however, one important class of stems, namely masc.