Page:Vedic Grammar.djvu/323

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VII. VERB. FINITE VERB. PERSONAL ENDINGS. present, the perfect, and the aorist. The imperfect has no moods; and the only modal form occurring in the future is the unique subjunctive karisyás, from kr- 'make'. 3¹3 d. The finite verb is, as in other languages, used in three persons in all tenses and moods excepting the imperative, where the first persons are supplied from the subjunctive. As in declension, the three numbers, singular, dual, and plural, are in regular use throughout. B. The nominal verb-forms comprise: a. Participles. The tense-stem of the present, future, aorist, and perfect each forms an active and a middle participle; e. g. gácchant-, gáccha-mana- 'going'; karisyant- 'going to do', yakṣyá-māṇa- 'going to sacrifice'; kránt-, krāṇá- 'making'; cakrváms-, cakraná- 'having done'. Besides these, there are passive participles, present, perfect, and future. The present form is made from the passive stem in -ya; e. g. stuyá-mana- 'being praised'. The perfect passive participle, on the other hand, is formed from the root; e. g. kr-tá- 'made'; as is also (with few exceptions) the future passive participle or gerundive; e. g. vánd-ya- 'praiseworthy'. b. Gerunds. These are stereotyped cases (chiefly instrumentals) of verbal nouns, and have the value of indeclinable active participles with a prevailingly past sense; e. g. gatví and gatváya 'having gone'. c. Infinitives. There are about a dozen differently formed types of infinitives, which are cases of verbal nouns made directly or with a suffix from the root, and hardly ever connected with a tense stem; e. g. idh-am 'to kindle'; gán-tavái 'to go'. A. The Finite Verb. I 411. All forms of the finite verb may be classed under four groups: (1) the present system, comprising the present tense together with its moods and participles, and its augmented past tense, the imperfect; (2) the perfect system, comprising the perfect tense together with its moods and participles, and its augmented past tense, the pluperfect² (494); (3) the aorist system, comprising the aorist tense together with its moods and participles; (4) the future system, comprising the future tense³ together with its participles, and its augmented past form, the conditional4. Personal Endings. 412. The characteristic feature of the finite verb is the addition of personal endings 5. These are divided into active and middle; in each of which groups, again, primary and secondary forms are to be distinguished. The primary forms appear throughout the present and future indicative, but in the middle only of the perfect indicative. The secondary forms appear in augmented indicatives, in injunctives (which are identical in form with un- augmented past indicatives), in the imperative (several forms of which are identical with the injunctive)7, and in the optative. The subjunctive fluctuates between the primary and the secondary endings, but the latter are about 1 Over 18 000 occurrences of verb-forms 4 There is only a single occurrence of have been noted by AVERY (221) in the this formation in the Sambitās. RV. 5 Cp. AVERY 225 f.; BRUGMANN, KG. 771-798. 6 The 3. pl. has here the peculiar ending 2 This term is used in a purely formal sense, as this rare tense has not a pluper- fect meaning. 3 There is no periphrastic future in the Samhitas. -re. 7 Cp. BRUGMANN, KG. 729.