पृष्ठम्:A Sanskrit primer (1901).djvu/३१

Introduction. 15 e been lopped off to so very great an extent, that with one insigui- ficant exception, the precative or aorist optative, only the present- system still retains any modal variety whatever. 58. There is a simple or ordinary conjugation of verbal roots, which we call primary; and there are certain more or less fully developed secondary or derivative conjugations ($ 69). 59. Voices. There are two voices, active and middle, which extend throughout the whole system of conjugation. For the present- system alone there is a special passive inflection; the middle forms outside that system, and sometimes even within it, are liable to be used likewise in a passive sense. Au active form is called by the Hindu grammarians parasmāi padam 'word for another'; a middle form, ātmane padam ‘word for one's self.' Some verbs are conjugated in both voices, others in one only; sometimes some of the tenses are inflected only in one voice, others only in the other voice, or in both; of a verb usually inflected in one voice sporadic forms of the other occur; and sometimes the voice differs as the verb is compounded with certain prepositions. 60. Persons and Numbers. There are three persons: first, second, and third; and, as with substantives, adjectives, and pro- nouns, three numbers: singular, dual, and plural. All these persons and numbers are made from every tense and mode—except that the first persons of the imperative are really subjunctive forms. 61. The native grammarians denote as the first person what we call the third; and as we are wont to speak of the verb deyw, the verb žpxonal, the verb amo, etc., so the Hindus use for instance Hafa bhávati (3rd sing. pres. indic. of \ bhū) to signify the whole system of verbal forms from that root, since Hafa heads the list of forms in the native gramniar, as réyw, or épxordio or amo, does in Greek or Latin. The Hindus even make substantives out of Univ Calif - Digitized by Microsoft ®