CHAPTER VIII.

CONJUGATION.

527. THE subject of conjugation or verbal inflection involves, as in the other languages of the family, the distinctions of voice, tense, mode, number, and person.

Then, besides the simpler or ordinary conjugation of a verbal root, there are certain more or less fully developed secondary or derivative conjugations.

528. Voice. There are (as in Greek) two voices, active and middle, distinguished by a difference in the personal endings. This distinction is a pervading one: there is no active personal form which does not have its corresponding middle, and vice versa; and it is extended also in part to the participles (but not to the infinitive).

529. An active form is called by the Hindu grammarians parasmai padam, 'a word for another', and a middle form is called atmane padam, 'a word for one's self': the terms might be best paraphrased by 'transitive' and 'reflexive'. And the distinction thus expressed is doubtless the original foundation of the difference of active and middle forms: in the recorded condition of the language, however, the antithesis of transitive and reflexive meaning is in no small measure blurred, or even altogether effaced.

530. Some verbs are conjugated in both voices, others in one only; sometimes a part of the tenses are inflected only in one voice, others only in the other or in both; of a verb usually inflected in one voice sporadic forms of the other occur; and sometimes the voice differs according as the verb is compounded with certain prepositions.

531. The middle forms outside the present-system (for which there is a special passive inflection: see below, 788),

and sometimes also within that system, are liable to be used likewise in a passive sense.

532. Tense. The tenses are as follows: 1. a present, with 2. an imperfect, closely related with it in form, having a prefixed augment; 3. a perfect, made with reduplication. (to which in the Veda is added, 4. a so-called pluperfect, made from it with prefixed augment); 5. an aorist, of three different formations: a. simple; b. reduplicated; c. sibilant; 6. a future, with 7. a conditional, an augment-tense, standing to it in the relation of an imperfect to a present; and 8. a second, a periphrastic, future (not found in the Veda.

The tenses here distinguished (in accordance with prevailing usage) as imperfect, perfect, pluperfect, and aorist receive those names from their correspondence in mode of formation with tenses so called in other languages of the family, especially in Greek, and not at all from differences of time designated by them. In no period of the Sanskrit language is there any expression of imperfect or pluperfect time nor of perfect time, except in the older language, where the "aorist" has this value; later, imperfect, perfect, and aorist (of rare use) are so many undiscriminated past tenses or preterits: see below, under the different

tenses.

533. Mode. In respect to mode, the difference between the classical Sanskrit and the older language of the Veda and, in a less degree, of the Brahmanas especially great.

is

In the Veda, the present tense has, besides its indicative inflection, a subjunctive, of considerable variety of formation, an optative, and an imperative (in 2d and 3d persons). The same three modes are found, though of much less frequent occurrence, as belonging to the perfect; and they are made also from the aorists, being of especial frequency from the simple aorist. The future has no modes (an occasional case or two are purely exceptional).

In the classical Sanskrit, the present adds to its indicative an optative and an imperative of which last, moreover, the first persons are a remnant of the old subjunc

tive. And the aorist has also an optative, of somewhat peculiar inflection, usually called the precative (or benedictive).

534. The present, perfect, and future tenses have each of them, alike in the earlier and later language, a pair of participles, active and middle, sharing in the various peculiarities of the tense-formations; and in the Veda are found such participles belonging also to the aorist.

535. Tense-systems. The tenses, then, with their accompanying modes and participles, fall into certain wellmarked groups or systems:

I. The present-system, composed of the present tense with its modes, its participle, and its preterit which we have called the imperfect.

II. The perfect-system, composed of the perfect tense (with, in the Veda, its modes and its preterit, the so-called pluperfect) and its participle.

III. The aorist-system, or systems, simple, reduplicated, and sibilant, composed of the aorist tense along with, in the later language, its "precative" optative but, in the Veda, with its various modes and its participle.

IV. The future-systems: a. the old or sibilant future, with its accompanying preterit. the conditional, and its participle; and b. the new periphrastic future.

536. Number and Person. The verb has, of course, the same three numbers with the noun, namely singular, dual, and plural; and in each number it has the three persons, first, second, and third. All of these are made in every tense and mode except that the first persons of the imperative numbers are supplied from the subjunctive.

537. Verbal adjectives and nouns: Participles. The participles belonging to the tense-systems have been already spoken of above (534). There is besides, coming directly from the root of the verb, a participle, prevailingly of past and passive (or sometimes neuter) meaning. Future passive participles, or gerundives, of several different formations, are also made.

538. Infinitives. In the older language, a very considerable variety of derivative abstract nouns only in a few sporadic instances having anything to do with the tensesystems are used in an infinitive or quasi-infinitive sense; most often in the dative case, but sometimes also in the accusative, in the genitive and ablative, and (very rarely) in the locative. In the classical Sanskrit, there remains a single infinitive, of accusative case-form, having nothing to do with the tense-systems.

539. Gerund. A so-called gerund (or absolutive) being, like the infinitive, a stereotyped case-form of a derivative noun is a part of the general verb-system in both the earlier and later language, being especially frequent in the latter. In the Veda it has a somewhat various form; in the later language, it has only two forms, one for simple verbs, and the other for compound. Its value is that of an indeclinable active participle, of indeterminate but prevailingly past tense-character.

A second gerund, an adverbially used accusative in form, is found, but only rarely, both earlier and later.

540. Secondary conjugations. The secondary or derivative conjugations are as follows: a. the passive; b. the intensive; c. the desiderative; d. the causative. In these, a conjugation-stem, instead of the simple root, underlies the whole system of inflection. Yet there is clearly to be seen in them the character of a present-system, expanded

into a more or less complete conjugation; and the passive is so purely a present-system that it will be described in the chapter devoted to that part of the inflection of the verb.

Under the same general head belongs the subject of denominative conjugation, or the conversion of noun and adjective-stems into conjugation-stems. Further, that of compound conjugation, whether by the prefixion of prepositions to roots or by the addition of auxiliary verbs to noun and adjective-stems. And finally, that of periphrastic conjugation, or the looser combination of auxiliaries with verbal nouns and adjectives.

541. The characteristic of a proper (finite or personal) verb-form is its personal ending. By this alone is determined its character as regards number and person and in part also as regards mode and tense. But the distinctions of mode and tense are mainly made by the formation of tense and mode-stems, to which, instead of to the pure root, the personal endings are appended.

In this chapter will be given a general account of the personal endings, and also of the formation of mode-stems from tense-stems, and of those elements in the formation of tensestems the augment and the reduplication which are found in more than one tense-system. Then, in the following chapters, each tense-system will be taken up by itself, and the methods of formation of its stems, both tense-stems and mode-stems, and their combination with the endings, will be described in detail.

Personal Endings.

542. The endings of verbal inflection are, as was pointed out above, different throughout in the active and middle voices. They are also, as in Greek, usually of two somewhat varying forms for the same person in the same voice: one fuller, called primary; the other briefer, called secondary. There are also less pervading differences, depending upon other conditions.

A condensed statement of all the varieties of ending for each person and number here follows.