MacDonnell II - Wilbourhall.org

122-124] THE PKESENT SYSTEM 119are also passive particii^les, present, perfect, and future ;the first being formed from the passive stem in ya, theother two from the root.c. There are also gerunds, which are stereotyped cases(chiefly instrumentals) of verbal nouns and having the valueof indeclinable active participles with a prevailingly pastsense ;e. g. gatvi and gatvaya having gone.d. There are about a dozen differently formed types ofinfinitives, which are cases of verbal nouns made directlyor with a suffix from the root, and hardly ever connectedwith a tense stem ; e. g.idh-am to kindle ; gan-tavai to go.The Present System.123. While the perfect, aorist, and future tenses add theendings directly (or after inserting a sibilant) to the root,the present group (that is,the present with its moods andand the imperfect) forms a special stem, whichparticiples,is made in eight different ways by primary verbs.The Eight Classes.124. These eight classes are divided into two conjugations.In the first, which comprises the first, fourth, andsixth classes, the present stem ends in a and remainsunchanged throughout (like the a declension). The secondaryconjugations in a (desideratives, intensives, causatives,denominatives) as well as the future follow this conjugationin their inflexion. The second or graded conjugation ischaracterized by shift of accent between stem and ending,accompanied by vowel gradation. It comprises the remainingfive classes, in which the terminations are added directlyto the final of the root or to the (graded) suffixes no or na,and the stem is changeable, being either strong or weak.