Denominatives are formed at every period in the history of the language, from the earliest down. a. They are frequent in RV., which contains over a hundred, of all varieties; AV. has only half as many (and personal forms from hardly a third as many: from the rest, present participles, or derivative nouns); AB., less than twenty; ÇB., hardly more than a dozen; and so on. In the later language they are quotable by hundreds, but from the vast majority of stems occur only an example or two; the only ones that have won any currency are those that have assumed the character of "cur-class" verbs. |