CHAPTER IX. THE PRESENT-SYSTEM. 599. THE present-system, or system of forms coming from the present-stem, is composed (as was pointed out above) of a present indicative tense, along with a subjunctive (mostly lost in the classical language), an optative, an imperative, and a participle, and also a past tense, an augment-preterit, to which we give (by analogy with the Greek) the name of imperfect. as if These forms generally go in Sanskrit grammar by the name of "special tenses", while the other tense-systems are styled "general tenses" the former were made from a special tense-stem or modified root, while the latter came, all alike, from the root itself. There is no reason why such a distinction and nomenclature should be retained; since, on the one hand, the "special tenses" come in one set of verbs directly from the root, and, on the other hand, the other tense-systems are mostly made from stems and, in the case of the aorist, from stems having a variety of form comparable with that of present-stems. 600. Practically, the present-system is the most prominent and important part of the whole conjugation, since, from the earliest period of the language, its forms are very much more frequent than those of all the other systems together. Thus, in the Veda, the occurrences of personal forms of this system are to those of all others about as three to one; in the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa, as five to one; in the Hitopadeça, as six to one; in the Çakuntalā, as eight to one; in Manu, as thirty to one. 601. And, as there is also great variety in the manner in which different roots form their present-stem, this, as being their most conspicuous difference, is made the basis of their principal classification; and a verb is said to be of this or of that conjugation, or class, according to the way in which its present-stem is made. 602. In a small minority of verbs, the present-stem is identical with the root. Then there are besides (excluding the passive and causative) eight more or less different ways of forming a present-stem from the root, each way being followed by a larger or smaller number of verbs. These are the "classes" or "conjugation-classes", as laid down by the native Hindu grammarians. They are arranged by the latter in a certain wholly artificial and unsystematic order (the ground of which has never been pointed out); and they are wont to be designated in European works according to this order, or else, after Hindu example, by the root standing at the head of each class in the Hindu lists. A different arrangement and nomenclature will be followed here, namely as below the classes being divided (as is usual in European grammars) into two more general classes or conjugations, distinguished from one another by wider differences than those which separate the special classes. 603. The classes of the FIRST CONJUGATION are as follows: I. The root-class (second class, or ad-class, of the Hindu grammarians); its present-stem is coincident with the root itself: thus, ad, 'eat'; i, 'go'; ya, 'go'; faq dois, 'hate'; duh, 'milk'. II. The reduplicating class (third or huclass); the root is reduplicated to form the present-stem: thus, juhu from Vhu, 'sacrifice'; dadā from Vदा, बिभृ VT, 'give'; far bibhr from y, bear'. જન્મ, III. The nasal class (seventh or rudh-class); a nasal, extended to the syllable na in strong forms, is inserted before the final consonant of the root: thus, रुन्ध् rundh (or रुणधू runadh) from / रुध् rudh; युज् yunj (or yчş yunaj) from vчşı yuj. IV. a. The nu-class (fifth or su-class); the syl lable √ nu is added to the root: thus, sunu from Vसु; श्राप्नु āpnu from vश्राप्@p. b. A very small number (only half-a-dozen) of roots ending already in n, and also one very common and quite irregularly inflected root not so ending ( kṛ, 'make'), add 3 u alone to form the present-stem. This is the eighth or tan-class of the Hindu grammarians; it may be best ranked by us as a sub-class, the u-class: thus, tanu from V tan. V. The na-class (ninth or kri-class); the syllable nā (or, in weak forms, thus, krīnā (or ni) is added to the root: krīṇī) from v kri, 'buy'; Fπ stabhnā (or FĤ stabhnī) from VF स्तभा lish'. stabh, ‘estab 604. These classes have in common, as their most fundamental characteristic, a shift of accent: the tone being now upon the ending, and now upon the root or the classsign. Along with this goes a variation in the stem itself, which has a stronger or fuller form when the accent rests upon it, and a weaker or briefer form when the accent is on the ending: these forms are to be distinguished as the strong stem and the weak stem respectively (in part, both have been given above). The classes also form their optative active, their 2d sing. imperative, and their 3d pl. middle, in a different manner from the others. 605. In the classes of the SECOND CONJUGATION, the present-stem ends in a, and the accent has a fixed place, remaining always upon the same syllable of the stem, and never shifted to the endings. Also, the optative, the 2d sing. impv., and the 3d pl. middle are (as just stated) unlike those of the other conjugation. 606. The classes of this conjugation are as follows: VI. The a-class, or unaccented a-class (first Whitney, Grammar. 14 or bhu-class); the added class-sign is a simply; and the váda from a vad, VII. The a-class, or accented a-class (sixth or tud-class); the added class-sign is a, as in the preceding class; but it has the accent, and the unaccented root remains unstrengthened: thus, tudȧ fromy, 'thrust'; सृज्ञ srjà from / सन् srj, let loose' ; सुव sued from / सूs, 'give birth'. VIII. The y a-class (fourth or div-class); ya is added to the root, which has the accent: thus, ou divya from v दिव् div ( more properly दीव div: see 765) ; नन nähya from √ √ nah, ‘bind'; e krúdhya from v 'be angry'. krudh, IX. The passive conjugation is also properly a present-system only, having a class-sign which is not extended into the other systems; though it differs markedly from the remaining classes in having a specific meaning, and in being formable in the middle voice (only) from all transitive verbs. Its inflection may therefore best be treated next to that of the ya-class, with which it is most nearly connected, differing from it as the d-class from the a-class. It forms its stem. namely, by adding an accented yȧ to the root: thus, श्रय adyà from y श्रद् ad; रुध्य rudhyà from / रुध् rudh; बुध्य budhyà from vबुघ् budh; तुम्छ tudyà from vतुद tuva tud. 607. The Hindu grammarians reckon a tenth class or curclass, having a class-sign aya added to a strengthened root thus, coraya from your, and an inflection like that of the other astems. Since, however, this stem is not limited to the presentsystem, but extends also into the rest of the conjugation while it also has to a great extent a causative value, and may be formed in that value from a large number of roots it will be best treated along with the derivative conjugations (chap. XIV.). 608. A small number of roots add in the present-system a ch, or substitute a ch for their final consonant, and form a stem ending in cha or chá, which is then inflected like an astem. This is historically, doubtless, a true class-sign, analogous with the rest; but the verbs showing it are so few, and in formation partly so irregular, that they are not well to be put together into a class, but may best be treated as special cases falling under the other classes. Roots adding ch are ṛ and yu, which make the stems ṛchá and yúcha. Roots substituting ch for their final are is, us (or vas 'shine'), gam, yam, which make the stems ichá, uchá, gácha, yácha. Of so-called roots ending in ch, several are more or less clearly stems, whose use has been extended from the present to other systems of tenses. 609. Roots are not wholly limited, even in the later language, to one mode of formation of their present-stem, but are sometimes reckoned as belonging to two or more different conjugation-classes. And such variety of formation is especially frequent in the Veda, being exhibited by a considerable proportion of the roots there occurring; already in the Brahmanas, however, a condition is reached nearly agreeing in this respect with the classical language. The different present-formations sometimes have differences of meaning; yet not more important ones than are often found belonging to the same formation, nor of a kind to show a difference of value as originally belonging to the separate classes of presents. If anything of this kind is to be established, it must be from the derivative conjugations, which are separated by no fixed line from the present-systems. 610. We take up now the different classes, in the order in which they have been arranged above, to describe more in detail, and with illustration, the formation of their presentsystems, and to notice the irregularities belonging under each class. I. Root-class (second, ad-class). 611. In this class there is no class-sign; the root itself is also present-stem, and to it are added directly the personal endings but combined in subjunctive and optative with the respective mode-signs, and in the imperfect taking the augment prefixed to the root. The accented endings (552) regularly take the accent except in the imperfect, where it falls on the augment and before |