Declension III.
Stems in long vowels: आ ā, ई ī, ऊ ū.
347. The stems ending in long vowels fall into two well-marked classes or divisions: A. monosyllabic stems — mostly bare roots — and their compounds, with a comparatively small number of others inflected like them; B. derivative feminine stems in आ ā and ई ī, with a small number in ऊ ū which in the later language have come to be inflected like them. The latter division is by far the larger and more important, since most feminine adjectives, and considerable classes of feminine nouns, ending in आ ā or ई ī, belong to it.
A. Root-words, and those inflected like them.
348. The inflection of these stems is by the normal endings throughout, or in the manner of consonant-stems (with अम् am, not म् m, in the accus. sing.); peculiarities like those of the other vowel-declensions are wanting. The simple words are, as nouns, with few exceptions feminine; as adjectives (rarely), and in adjective compounds, they are alike in masculine and feminine forms. They may, for convenience of description, be divided into the following subclasses:
1. Root-words, or monosyllables having the aspect of such. Those in ā are so rare that it is hardly possible to make up a whole scheme of forms in actual use; those in ī and ū are more numerous, but still very few.
2. Compounds having such words, or other roots with long final vowels, as last member.
3. Polysyllabic words, of various origin and character, including in the Veda many which later are transferred to other declensions.
4. As an appendix to this class we may most conveniently describe the half-dozen stems, mostly of regular inflection, ending in diphthongs.
