so purely a present-system that it will be described in the chapter devoted to that part of the inflection of the verb.
a. Under the same general head belongs the subject of denominative conjugation, or the conversion of noun and adjective-stems into conjugation-stems. Further, that of compound conjugation, whether by the prefixion of prepositions to roots or by the addition of auxiliary verbs to noun and adjective-stems. And finally, that of periphrastic conjugation, or the looser combination of auxiliaries with verbal nouns and adjectives.
541. The characteristic of a proper (finite or personal) verb-form is its personal ending. By this alone is determined its character as regards number and person — and in part also as regards mode and tense. But the distinctions of mode and tense are mainly made by the formation of tense and mode-stems, to which, rather than to the pure root, the personal endings are appended.
a. In this chapter will be given a general account of the personal endings, and also of the formation of mode-stems from tense-stems, and of those elements in the formation of tense-stems — the augment and the reduplication — which are found in more than one tense-system. Then, in the following chapters, each tense-system will be taken up by itself, and the methods of formation of its stems, both tense-stems and mode-stems, and their combination with the endings, will be described and illustrated in detail. And the complete conjugation of a few model verbs will be exhibited in systematic arrangement in Appendix C.
542. The endings of verbal inflection are, as was pointed out above, different throughout in the active and middle voices. They are also, as in Greek, usually of two somewhat varying forms for the same person in the same voice: one fuller, called primary; thebriefer, called secondary. There are also less pervading differences, depending upon other conditions.
a. In the epics, exchanges of primary and secondary active endingsthe substitution of ma, va, ta, for mas, vas, tha) are not infrequent.