the feminine termination: e.g. sing. thi, pl. thin.

تھیں

Rem. These are not Professor Williams calls them, for honā springs from the Sanskrit bhū, 'to be or become,' the Prakrit form of which is ho or huva; whereas the forms hūn, etc., are derived from the present tense of the Sanskrit as, 'to be' e.g. hun P. amhi = S. asmi; hai=P. asi=S. asi, and so on, the process of transformation in Hindī being analogous to that of the terminations of the aorist; h, however (into which the s also of asi, etc., is changed), being in no instance elided, but transposed. The form ↳ thā is traceable to the Sanskrit root sthā, ‘to stand,' which is used even in Sanskrit as a substantive verb with the sense of 'to be.'

anomalous formations derived from hona," as

2) THE PRESENT IMPERFECT.

189. The Present Imperfect is formed by adding the first of the above auxiliary tenses to the imperfect participle of a verb: e.g. masc.

ވ

لتي .chalta hain, fem جلتا ھوں

chalti hun, 'I am going.'

Rem. a. The present tense is sometimes formed by adding the same auxiliary to the aorist of a verb; as chalūn hün, ‘I go or am going.' This form, which is properly an indefinite present, was at one period general; numerous instances of its use occur in the poets,

and it is still very common in the tract of country extending from Agra to Sindh; but in other parts of Northern India it is now seldom used, except by the uneducated.

Rem. b. The termination ga is occasionally added to the auxiliary in the present and present perfect tenses, and even when it is used independently, sometimes intensifying, but often without affecting the haigā=

= chalta haiga جلتا هیگا hai هي = haiga هیگا ,sense; for example

chalta hai. Such forms, it may be observed, are regarded as

unchaste (gair faṣīḥ) by native scholars.

3) THE PAST IMPERFECT OR CONTINUOUS.

190. This tense is formed by adding the auxiliary ↳ tha to the imperfect participle of a verb: e.g. masc.

میں

,main chalti thi میں چلتی تھی .main chalta tha, fem چلتا تھا

'I was going.' It frequently denotes a habitual or repeated act in past time, as 'I used (to go),' etc., and when used in this sense the auxiliary, tha, is often omitted, so that the tense then assumes the form of the Past Conditional.

4) THE PROXIMATE OR PRESENT PERFECT.

191. The Present Perfect is formed by adding the first of the auxiliary tenses to the perfect participle of a verb: e.g. (fem.)1⁄4 chalā (fem. chali) hūn, ‘I have gone or set out.' If the verb be transitive, the construction is the same as in the Past Absolute (§ 185), the auxiliary always taking the form of the 3rd person sing. or plural: e.g. olib jal, rājā-ne sher mārā hai, ‘the king has killed a tiger,' or lit. 'by the king a tiger has been killed;'

raja-ne tin sher mare hain, the راجا نے تین شیر مارے ہیں راجانے تین شیرنی or شیرنیاں ) ; king has killed three tigers

rājā-ne tin sherni (or sherniyān) mūrī hain, ‘the

اُس لڑکے نے مجھکو or مُجھے ) ; king has killed three tigresses

مارا هي

Kes ↳ us laṛke-ne mujhko (or mujhe) mārā hai, ‘that boy has beaten me.' When the object of the act is represented by a personal pronoun, the participle will always remain uninflected, since such pronouns admit of the dative form of the accusative alone.

5) THE REMOTE OR PAST PERFECT.

میں

192. The Past Perfect is formed by adding the auxiliary tha to the perfect participle of a verb: e.g. ↳ main chalā thā, ‘I had gone;' ham chale the, 'we had gone,' feminine

هم

ham chalī thin, it

being sufficient to add the plural termination to the auxiliary. If the verb be transitive, the same construction is employed as in the Past Absolute and Present

میں نے تین گھوڑیاں یا گھوڑي خريدي تھيں .Perfect : eng

main ne tin ghoriyān (yā ghoṛī) kharīdī thin, 'I had purchased three mares,' lit. 'by me three mares had been purchased.'

6) THE FUTURE PERFECT, OR PAST POTENTIAL.

میں

193. This tense is formed by adding the Future of the verb hona, 'to be or become,' to the perfect participle of a verb: e.g. main chalā hūngā, 'I shall have gone,' or, more commonly, 'I may have gone.' The termination ga of the Future is occasionally dropped, or, in other words, the Aorist of the verb hona is added to the perfect participle, and then the signification is invariably that of the Past Potential: e.g. main chala hon, 'I may have

gone.' If the verb be transitive, the construction is the same as in the case of other tenses composed of passive participles.

Rem. It is a mistake to say that this tense is not of very frequent occurrence," as all English writers on Hindi and Urdu grammar do. It is commonly employed, both colloquially and in writing; not however as a Future Perfect, but as a Past Potential, expressing the possibility, or uncertainty, of an act.

CONJUGATION.

194. We now proceed to conjugate three verbs: viz.

the transitive-active verb

likhna, 'to write;' the intransitive-active verb chalnā, 'to move or go,' and the substantive verb ↳ honā, 'to be.' The masculine forms alone will be given; it will therefore be borne in mind that, in the Future and all tenses composed of the imperfect and perfect participles, the final vowel a of the sing. is changed to i for the feminine, and the final vowel e of the plural to in. The verbal nouns and adjectives are declined like other nouns and adjectives ending in a. The arrangement of the moods and tenses differs but slightly from that found in existing grammars; it is necessary therefore to again direct attention to the fact that the Conditional, though classed with the tenses derived from the imperfect participle, is a past tense of the subjunctive mood. The Imperative, properly speaking, consists of the second person alone, and this is all that is given; the remaining persons are

1

Participle.

identical with those of the Aorist, from which indeed they

who is in the act of writing.'

Passive, likhā hā'ā, 'been written,' 'what has been

PLURAL.

tum likho, write you,'

likhiyo, you shall or will

write.'

Future i likhʊegā, ‘you will be pleased to write.'

1 It should be observed that there is no necessity to express the personal pronoun in the Imperative, the Aorist, and the Present Perfect (and, in the case of intransitive verbs, in the Past Perfect, and Past Potential), unless any stress is to be laid on the person; and that, in all the tenses, the pronouns, if expressed, as commonly follow as precede the verb.