a. This class is essentially only a special class of compound adjectives, since in the earliest Veda the simple as well as the compounded root was sometimes used adjectively. But the compounded root was from the beginning much more often so used, and the later the more exclusively, so that practically the class is a separate and important one.
324. Compound adjectives having a noun as final member, but obtaining an adjective sense secondarily, by having the idea of possession added, and being inflected as adjectives in the three genders (1293 ff.). Thus, prajā́kāmá desire of progeny, whence the adjective prajā́kāma, meaning desirous (i.e. having desire) of progeny; sabhārya (sa+bhāryā) having one's wife along; and so on.
a. In a few cases, also, the final noun is syntactically object of the preceding member (1309–10): thus, atimātra immoderate (ati mātram beyond measure); yāvayáddveṣas driving away enemies.
325. Hence, under each declension, we have to notice how a root or a noun-stem of that declension is inflected when final member of an adjective compound.
a. As to accent, it needs only to be remarked here that a root-word ending a compound has the accent, but (320) loses the peculiarity of monosyllabic accentuation, and does not throw the tone forward upon the ending (except añc in certain old forms: 410).
Stems (masculine and neuter) in अ a.
326. a. This declension contains the majority of all the declined stems of the language.
b. Its endings deviate more widely than any others from the normal.
327. Endings: Singular. a. The nom. masc. has the normal ending s.
b. The acc. (masc. and neut.) adds m (not am); and this form has the office also of nom. neuter.
c. The instr. changes a to ena uniformly in the later language; and even in the oldest Vedic this is the predominant ending (in RV., eight ninths of all cases). Its final is in Vedic verse frequently made long (enā). But the normal ending ā — thus, yajñā́ , suhávā, mahitvā́ (for yajñéna etc.) — is also not rare in the Veda.
d. The dat. has āya (as if by adding aya to a), alike in all ages of the language.
e. The abl. has t (or doubtless d: it is impossible from the evidence of the Sanskrit to tell which is the original form of the ending),