CHAPTER II. THE TENSES. 367 Relations of mood and tense. Their proper arrangement. 368 Limitations of Bopp's theory of agglutination. 369 Genuine forms of verbs include pronominal adjuncts. 370 Augment and reduplication are not identical. The augment - from άva expresses distance. 371 The future 6- an indication of proximity. 372 Connexion of aorist and future. Burnouf's theory of the tenses. 373 How the aorist combines the expression of posteriority with that of past time. 374 The 2nd aorist. 375 The desiderative in -oɛío. 376 The 1st and 2nd perfect. 377 Aorist and perfect agree in termination, and differ in the reduplication of the latter. This is shown by the Latin forms of the perfect. 378 Repetitions of the termination in Latin. 379 Passive aorists: erroneous views respecting these formations. 380 Supposed active aorists which must be considered as belonging to this class. 381 Aorist in - due to the insertion of the pronominal element ya. 382 Aorist in v similarly formed by the insertion of thya. 383 This last element is not immediately connected with the root of tidŋui. Middle forms with transitive signification. 384 Middle futures to active verbs. 385 Abnormal formation of passive futures. 386 Tenses in oxov. 387 Verbs in -σxш. 367 IT is difficult to discuss the various questions connected with the development of the tenses in Greek, without including some topics which properly belong to an inquiry into the origin and meaning of the modal inflexions, because, as we shall soon see, the inflexions of tense and mood are in fact identical. In the progressive analysis, however, of the verbs, it is customary to consider the expression of the relations of time immediately after those of number and person, and distinct from those of modality; and since these must be considered as subject to some sort of modality, to treat of them in the first instance as they appear in the indicative mood, in that mood which is always used in the oratio directa when nothing beyond assertion is intended. For form's sake, we shall abide by the old method. The tense-system of the Greek verb is wonderfully comprehensive; in number of tenses it far exceeds the Latin, and in the preciseness of their significations it leaves the Sanscrit a long way behind. The proper and most general division of the Greek inflexions of tense and mood, is into definite and indefinite forms. In accordance, however, with the old system, we will first discuss the tenses agreeably to the three great divisions, according as they signify present, past, or juture time. Of these divisions, we must omit the present tense: the affections of that form are not so much variations of tense, as peculiarities of conjugation; it belongs, therefore, to a future chapter. Before we discuss in detail the different tense-forms, it may be convenient that we should state the general results at which we have arrived. It is hoped that the reader will be convined that the proper expression of past time is by means of the prefix a- or e- from a-na, denoting distance or separation: tha: future time is expressed by the second element, under the form -8 implying proximity; that continuous action is denoted by reduplication; posteriority in past time by a combination of the prefix e- with the affix -8; and continuation up to the presen time, by a combination of the reduplicated root with the latter affix. These are the regular forms. Abnormal varieties will be noticed in the proper place. 368 It will, perhaps, be proper that we should in the first pla make a few remarks on the theory of Bopp, according to which may of the past and future tenses are formed by agglutination, or compo sition with the substantive verb. Thus he thinks (Annals of Orien Literature, p. 45) that -ɛow, middle -ɛooua, is properly the character istic of the future tense, and that this is merely the present tense: the substantive verb 'EΣ provided with -w for the termination, which the usage of language has given a future signification. E even goes so far as to assume that óovμaɩ may be an abbreviation ἐσέσομαι, and (p. 61) that εἴησαν is a compound of εἴη and σαντι E conceives there is an analogy for this in the Sanscrit future character istic -syâmi. "It may be supposed," he says (p. 47), "that the ri As would have had a future tense originally, and it seems to m credible that syâmi is this future tense, being lost by lapse of time disconnected use, and being found at present extant only compoun. with attributive roots." In the same way he considers the first ar as it is called (Tvя-6α, &c.), as a compound of the root of the atte butive verb with the first preterite of the substantive verb, and sixlarly analyzes fu-erunt for fuesunt, fu-erim for fuesim, fac-sim, ki In favour of this general view, he adduces the Provençal compens futures, aurai for aver ai, &c. (p. 46). But these are widely diferent formations from those which he imagines in Sanscrit and Greek. T two parts of the compound are both existing words, and may be written separately, as indeed appears from the instances which be quotes from Sainte-Palaye: compatar vos ai for je vous compterai; dar vos n' ai for je vous en donnerai; dir vos ai for je vous dirai; dir vos em for nous vous dirons; gitar m'etz for vous me jeterez. See also Raynouard, Gramm. Romane, p. 221. Whereas his supposed compounds are made up of a root, which of course cannot exist separately, and of a termination which never does appear as a distinct word; for there is no such verb as low in Greek, and syâmi is equally imaginary. There are instances of compound tenses in Sanscrit: namely, the future, of which we have already spoken (§ 362), and which is composed of a participle and the full verb asmi; also, a preterite formed of an abstract substantive in &, used only in the accusative âm, and corresponding to an infinitive in Zend, and one of the three verbs ása, "I was," babhûva, "I have been," and chakâra, "I have made:" thus from the root îç, "to rule," we have the abstract substantive îçâ, accusative îçâm, and by composition with the perfects of as-, bhû, and kri, are formed the perfects îçâm-âsa, îçâm-babhûva, and îçâny-chakâra, all signifying “I ruled" (Bopp, Krit. Gramm. p. 229). These com pounds might be divided, as is often the case with the former. To a certain extent, we recognise the truth of Bopp's theory in its application to the Latin tenses in -bo, -bam, and -vi (see Vergl. Gramm. p. 804, cf. Varron. pp. 353 sqq.), and we have elsewhere pointed out an agglutination running through all the tenses of the Latin verbs in -so, -sivi (Varron. p. 352). There are also instances of auxiliary or periphrastic formations in Greek, of which we shall speak hereafter, but they are all made up of distinctly developed verbs, and therefore furnish no analogy for the support of Bopp's theory. In general, we have no more right to presume a composition in etymology when the elements never exist separately, than we have to infer an ellipsis in syntax, when the supposed full form never occurs. 369 But perhaps the greatest objection to this comprehensive theory of agglutination, arises from its contradiction to a mode of developing the tenses natural in itself and supported by every analogy of comparative grammar. In the verb, as well as in the noun, there is a wide distinction between compound words and those which are merely developments of a root by means of pronominal additions. In pointing out the analogy between the verb and the noun, we have mentioned that the person-endings in their modifications correspond to the cases. We are convinced that the differences of tense and mood, and, in some instances, of voice, were originally expressed by pronominal adjuncts, the same in kind with those which constitute the affixes between the root and case-ending of a noun. There are in fact two ways in which the crude-form of a word, whether it be a noun or a verb, may be affected. It may either be affected internally, that is, by reduplication, guna, or anusvára, or externally, by means of some prefix or affix. The first method is adopted in the two primary tenses, the present and perfect, as will be shown in the chapter on the conjugations. The second is applied to the formation of all the other moods and tenses, and, in some cases, also to the expression of the passive voice. This external pronominal affection is brought about in two ways; first, by a simple prefix of the demonstrative element ǎ or έ, called the augment: secondly, by an affix which is always some modification of the second pronominal element: thus we have aorists and futures under the form să; perfects under the form kă or ha; the optative mood under the form ya; the passive voice under the form ya or thya; and sometimes two forms of the same element are combined, as in the iterative s-ka, and, according to one view, in the desiderative s-ya, and the aorist th-ya just mentioned. In a subsequent chapter we shall refer to the same root the derivative affixes in -go=dya, and -έw, &c.=ya. We begin with the augment 370 In the Greek system of tenses, past time is denoted by s short prefixed to the verb, or, apparently, by a reduplication of the first consonant and root-vowel, which, however, is generally altered according to certain rules. Buttmann is inclined to consider the latter as the original characteristic of past time, the former being a mutilation of it (Ausführl. Sprl. § 82, 3, note). Even though we had no other objection to offer to this view, we should consider Bopp's argument fatal to it. The historical tenses in the Sanscrit verb are marked by an augment ă: the perfect, in the same way as the Greek. by reduplication: but, as Bopp remarks (Annals of Oriental Litersture, p. 41), "the Sanscrit augment has no connexion at all with th reduplication, because the redoubled consonant is generally articulate. by the vowel of the root; tup forming tutup-, and liç, lilic; now. the first preterite of these roots were utôpat, ilêçat, instead of att alêçat, then it might be said that there exists some connexion between the reduplication and the augment, when there also would be a mere inflexion, whilst, in its actual state, I consider it as an affix which had its proper signification." There are, however, other reasons f believing that the augment and reduplication are essentially different. Besides the repetition of the initial consonant with ɛ to form a perfect, there is another reduplication, frequently found in verbs in of the initial consonant with short to form the present and perfect. Thus we have tí-on-u in the present, and tέ-du-xa in the perfect. We believe that there is no essential difference between these two prefixes: the difference of tense is expressed by the suffix -xa 2 and the change of the root-vowel. What the prefix or reduplication 2 means, we must now endeavour to find out. The root - might appear in a noun,--ós for instance-as well as in the verb tí-on-u. In the noun it might imply that the person indicated was "a placer," 12. but in the verb it must convey an idea of an action-"a placing." Now an act necessarily implies a continuance or duration, and what more simple method of expressing this could we desire than by a repetition of the root? At any rate, we are told that, in the broken English of the Negroes, acts are expressed by repetitions of substantives. Just so we believe it was with the original Greek present tense. The present and imperfect both express a continuancetívnu, "I am placing," tiny, "I was placing." The perfect expresses the continued state after the act had taken place: it is a mixture of present and past time: it speaks of the person's state or duration as present, of the act as past; tέ-da-xα, "I am in the state of a person who has placed." The distinction between the aorist and these reduplicated tenses consists in this, that the aorist always speaks of the action as single, as confined to a point of time, and this meaning it retains through all the moods, even the imperative, as Greek scholars have fully shown. Now the aorist never admits of reduplication, even in those verbs in which the present, &c., are reduplicated, except in some cases, when it entirely loses its meaning. I In his earlier treatise on the verb, Bopp endeavoured to connect the privative signification of the particle a- with the temporal augment. He wrote as follows (Annals of Oriental Literature, p. 27): "What the a, prefixed to (Sanscrit) verbs in order to form a preterite, originally signified, I do not know, but this I know, that it is prefixed in the same manner to nouns with the sense of a negative and privative particle; for instance, adîna, happy (not miserable), anindita, dear (not despised), abala, weak (without strength), &c. It would not by any means be contrary to the general practice of languages, if by the words adina, anindita, exceeding the primary sense of the negative particle a, the Sanscrit had also signified one who has been miserable, who has been despised-but who is not now miserable, not now despised; in that case there might have been a closer connexion between a negative and a preterite, than would be evident at first sight; or, in other words, the particle a, expressing in its primitive sense negation, can very properly in a secondary sense indicate past time, that is to say, deny the existence of the action or quality with respect to the present time. One might ask why in this way a is not as well employed to form the future tense, for neither in this tense does the action or quality expressed by the verb actually exist: but the usage of language is despotic, arbitrarily employing its means |