8. Frequentatives, which express an action continually repeated, as jadam, I eat frequently.' Both active and neuter verbs may be either dokonane or niedokonane, perfect or imperfect. The perfect verbs have no present tense nor any present participle.* The mark of the perfect verb is the future anterior, as it is called, which is conjugated like the present of the imperfect verbs; e. g., zgadnę, ‘I shall have guessed;' przyczytam, 'I shall have finished reading.'

Many perfect verbs are characterized by being compounded with a preposition, which gives the idea of completion; others by changes in the letters. Perfect verbs are sometimes formed out of imperfect by changing the termination ać into ić or qé. The two forms, perfect and imperfect, make a complete conjugation in Polish. We must ascertain to which of these two classes a verb belongs by looking into a good dictionary. Frequentatives, as a rule, form the present in wam, the perfect in wał, and the infinitive in wać. The four last of these divisions are termed by Slavonic grammarians' aspects.' The constant use of the aspects amply atones for the poverty of tenses in the modern Slavonic verb, in Polish the palæo-Slavonic aorist being lost.

The following are the chief prepositions which enter into the composition of the Polish verbs :—

Do-which implies carrying the action to the extremity; as dobić, to beat utterly.'

* Małecki, i. 263.

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Na-expresses direction towards a certain place as pływać to sail,' napływać, to sail towards.'

Nad-expresses excess, as dać, 'to give,' naddać, ‘to give too much.’

Od-expresses distance from a place, as jechać, 'to depart,' odjechać, to go from a place.'

Po-expresses continuation of an action, as bielić, to make white,' pobielić, 'to continue to make white.'

O, ob, obe-express the accomplishment of an action, as siodłać, to saddle,' osiodłać, to finish saddling a horse.' underneath,' like the Latin sub, as

Pod-expresses

pisać, to write,' podpisać, 'to sign.'

Prze―express the thorough accomplishment of the action, Latin per, as czytać, to read,' przecytać, to read from beginning to end.’

Przy-expresses nearness,' as biedz, 'to run,' przybiedz, 'to run by the side of.'

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Roz-expresses different directions, as pisać, to write,' rozpisać, to write in different directions.'

U-expresses thoroughness, as śmiać się, to laugh,' uśmiać się, to laugh out and out.'

W-expresses direction of a thing within, as chodzić, ‘to go,' wchodzić, to go in.'

Wy-expresses' out,' as prosić, 'to entreat,' wyprosić, to obtain from a person by entreaty.'

W, uz-expresses on high,' as nosić, 'to carry,' wznosić, 'to carry on high.'

Z, ze expresses the perfect accomplishment of an action, as jeść, to eat,' zjeść, ' to eat entirely.'

Za-expresses 'over,' as mowić, to speak,' zamowić, to talk a person over.'

The tenses are, (1) the Present, as czynię, idę, &c. (2) The Perfect; as czyniłem, 'I did :' really a past participle with certain suffixes, as will be shown afterwards, and hence it is inflected according to gender. (3) The Pluperfect, rarely used; as czyniłem był,' I had done.' (4) The Future, which may be expressed in two ways, either by the auxiliary and the participle, as będę czynił, or the auxiliary and the infinitive, czynić będę—this is the simple future; when sometimes the present is used as a future (e.g. in the perfect verb), it is called the future anterior.

The perfect, imperfect, frequentative verbs, &c., are arranged under the four conjugations according to their terminations.

In Polish there are four conjugations and six moods: (1) the Infinitive; (2) the Indicative; (3) the Imperative; (4) the Subjunctive, which is expressed by adding żeby, ażeby and iżby to the participial form, as żebym kochał, ‘that I may love.' In reality no Slavonic language has an independent form of the subjunctive. (5) The Conditional, implying a condition: this mood is expressed in Polish in two ways, (a) with by, gdyby, aby, with the participial form of the verb być, to be; or (b) by the addition of by to the participial form of the verb in ł, but the particle by must then take the personal terminations, as kochał bym, 'I should have loved.' (6) The Optative, which is made by the

conjunction obym with the participial form in 7, as obym list odebrał, 'Oh, that I could receive the letter!' Thus we see that in reality there are only three moods in Polish of independent form: the last three are made by particles.

The reader will observe the following elements of the Polish verb :

The mark of the 1st per. sing. is m, which sometimes by a phonetic law becomes ; parallels to these two forms being found in all the Slavonic languages. Sometimes both forms are found in the same verb, as wydziubywam and wydziubuję; the latter, however, is the more common. Of the second s, or sz; of the first person plural śmy, of the second ście. These may enter into various combinations, and by paying attention to their positions the acquisition of a knowledge of the verbs may be much simplified. These suffixes are in reality, as might be imagined, merely mutilated parts of the present tense of the verb 'to be,' which oldest form was as follows:

* The original suffix for the third person singular was t; this, however, though preserved in Russian, is lost in the West-Slavonic languages. The suffix of the third person plural is n; this, however, by its coalescing with the bindevocal, becomes a.

The explanation of the form now in use will be given a little further on.

But these particles can be used not only with verbs but with other words, so as to cause the sentence to be shaped in many different ways, and this peculiarity of the Polish language is deserving of careful consideration; thus we may say either dobrze pisałem, or dobrzem pisał, ‘I have written well,' ja pilny jestem, or jam pilny jest, ‘I am industrious;' wczora rano byłes w kościele, or wczora ranos był w kośćiele, 'Thou wert early at church yesterday.' So also my byliśmy, or myśmy byli, 'We were;' wy byliście, or wyście byli,' Ye were ;' głośno śpiewaliśćie, or głosnośćie śpiewali, You have sung loudly;' &c. They may also be added to particles, as Bom nie przyszedł wzywać sprawiédliwych ale grzesznych do pokuty, 'I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.' (Matt. ix. 13.) So also Ale abyście wiedzieli, iż ma moc syn człowieczy, ‘But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power.' (Matt. ix. 6.) This gives extraordinary flexibility and variety to the sentence.

The following are the suffixes of the Imperative:

The suffix of the Perfect is t, which is added immediately to the stem, as grał, piekł. The only exceptions are kłól, pról, where the o is the connecting vowel (bindevocal). This