III. On a Case of Suppletive Indo-European Suffixes

The older Indo-European languages have preserved a considerable number of adjectives in oxytone ú of the type Ved. prthús, Avest. , Gr. πλατus ‘broad’; or Ved. , Goth, þaúrsus; OHG. durri ‘dry.‘ For the most part they express very primary adjectival ideas, to a large extent qualities inherent in concrete objects, showing that they were formed at a very early time. They are generally made from the reduced grade of the root, due to their oxytone accent, but morfological and lexical (semantic) influences have tended occasionally, though not very often, to efface the inter-play between oxytonesis and reduced root-form (Vedic = Gr. , etc.). Adjective function and the position of the accent preserve their distinctive class character to an uncommon degree.