16 Introduction. such catchword forms, and inflect them according to the needs of expression. 62. In the following, the conjugation-class of verbs will be indicated by the 3rd sing. pres. ind., placed in parenthesis after the root; thus, # bhū (Hafa bhávati). 63. Tenses and modes. The scheme of tenses and modes put forth by the Hindus bolds good only for the later language, and even there utterly confounds the ideas of mode and tense. 64. The only logical arrangement of the modes and tenses in Sanskrit is shown in the following table (which includes only the classical speech): I. Present-System: a. Indicative. b. Imperfect. c. Imperative. d. Optative. e. Participle. II. Perfect System. a. Indicative. b. Participle. III. Aorist Systems (of triple formation). a. Indicative. b. Op- tative (sometimes = “Precative”). IV. Future Systems. A. Şibilant Future. a. Indicative. b. Preterit(= "Conditional"). c. Participle. B. Periphrastic Future. a. Indicative. 65. The tenses here distinguished as imperfect, perfect, 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 any 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; in the later speech, imperfect, perfect, and aorist (of rare use) are so many undiscriminated past tenses or preterits. COT Univ Calif - Digitized by Microsoft ®
