Simple Present tense - Verb Conjugation - Part 1

The inflection of verbs is known as “conjugation”. It consists of changes in form to show differences in person, number, tense, mood, and voice. In this post we will start our look at the present tense in Pali.

By now you may have realised that the available tools (DPR & Pali Lookup) are good but not infallible when it comes to detecting the inflections of Pali verbs.

Nouns tend to be straightforward, there are many groups but the ending are fairly regular. However, verbs and their derivatives can be very irregular and multitudinous and not all the variations are caught by the automated parser - nor the dictionary. This then can cause the amateur translator hours of frustration in their attempts to search for that one illusive word not in the dictionary.

So at some point in ones studies it becomes pragmatic to delve into the process of inflection. This, and the next few posts, will hopefully shed some light on the whole affair. 

The various Pali grammar guides out there use differing methods to classify verbs and employ different terminologies resulting in a whole mass of confusion – for me at least. In this post I’ll try to keep it as simple as I can from what I’ve managed to glean. As such, accuracy maybe compromised – so be warned.

First, here's an introductory video tutorial about the mechanics of verb inflection which explains many of the terms we'll be using below.

Intro to Verb Inflection: Learn Pali Language #21

An introductory tutorial looking at the basic mechanics of Verb Inflection [conjugation] in the Pali language. It explains the terms: 'root, stem & base' as well as words such as 'affix, suffix & infix.

 Roots & stems

All verbs are said to come from a set of basic elements called verb roots, or just roots for short. These are convenient grammatical fictions and never appear as actual words themselves. Pāli shares the same roots as Sanskrit and there are about 1900 different verb roots in the traditional lists.
Abridged lists can be found at: Pāli verb roots; & Sanskrit verb roots.

• A root is an element, not further analysable at the grammatical or lexical levels. It carries a basic meaning which may be very vague and general. They are usually marked by the √ symbol as in the verb root √gam = 'to go'. .

Most verb roots in Pāli are just one syllable long. But despite this short length, roots are capable of great diversity, prodcing families of stems.

√vid	vida 'to know' vinda 'to find' vijja 'to have' vedaya 'to feel'

• Note: Stems have specific dictionary meanings whereas roots don’t! 

Now stems in Pali are not yet inflected words. Once you have the verb stem , you may attach prefixes – of which there are about 20 - and modal infixes indicating tense/mood to form a verb base . Personal endings may then added to this base in order to indicate the person and number thus rendering an inflected verb!

√gam	Verb Base
prefix	Pres. stem	modal infix	Personal Ending
-	gaccha	-	ti		present, 3rd per, sgl
=> gacchati					(he goes)
ā	gaccha	eyya	si		present, opt 2nd per, sgl
=> āgaccheyyasi					(you may come)

The terms stem and base are often used interchangeably. But here I'm using the term base to mean the form before a personal ending, indicating number and person, has been added. A stem may become an inflectional base itself or further prefixes and infixes added to form the base upon which personal endings are attached to form actual inflected verbs.
In Pali, the process of going from root to inflected verb is complex but can be broken down into several stages.

1. root => stem

2. stem => base

3. base => inflected verb

Just as a word of warning, the term conjugation in English has the general meaning of adding tense to a verb, however, Pali grammarians use it specifically to refer to the derivation of present stems from roots! see below.

So lets go one step at a time...

1. Derivation of Pres. Stems from Roots - The Conjugations

Now the ancient Sanskrit grammarians sorted Sanskrit's verb roots into classes according to how the roots formed their present stems . With the majority identifying seven such classes (some eight). These classes are referred to as conjugation by Warder and others.
Also these conjugation classes of roots are often referred to by number – 1st conjugation and so on.

Note verb tense mood/modes (see below) are also often denoted to by number so it’s easy to get muddled.

Here's a table that lists the Pali root conjugation classes. The descriptions are included for illumination only. The transformation of root to stem is convoluted and I leave it to the reader to investigate further - : Duroiselle p368, Perniola pg.75.

* –ya often assimilates and produced a (re)duplicated consonant.
The fourth is merged with the fifth; however the numbering scheme is still used as it matches that of Sanskrit.

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What is more important, I think, for the amateur translator is to be able to identify the tenses, so the details of pres. stem formation can largely be ignored.
The important thing to note here is that the root to stem conjugations result in present stems which end in either:

-a,  -nā,  -e, or  -o. 

2. Stem to base - adding Tenses & mood

In a previous post I gave an overview of verb tense, aspect and moods or modes where I listed the various tenses and modes. To recap. In Pali there are three general time periods:

• Present : refers to an action occurring at the present time.
• Past (sometimes called Aorist or preterite): refers to the general indefinite past or previously completed events. It is also used in prohibitions.
• Future : implies an action or an event that will occur at some unspecified point in the future. It can also be used to express the probable, a mild imperative.

Now in theory these tenses are formed on three stem types:

• present on present stem
• past on aorist stem
• future on future stem

But in reality the aorist and future can and are also formed on the present stem too!...
Further, several moods or modalities can be identified within each tense.

The present tense, contains:

• the indicative, used principally to indicate that something is a statement of fact;
• the imperative, used for commands but also invitations and wishes and to form prohibitions.
• the optative, used to express possibility, probability, fitness, agreement, or permission. it can indicate a wish or hope. English has no morphological optative, but it implies 'may', 'if only' etc.

While, the future tense contains:

• the future indicative &
• the conditional, used in the expression of the hypothetical. In Pāli, it is rather strange, it refers to a future event which may not eventuate due to some impediment or obstruction and so is used to suggest impossibility, potential failure or non-realisation of an action.".

The aorist tense in reality only has one mood, though some grammrians identify:

• aorist,
• perfect,
• imperfect

These three past-like tenses, or aspects, of Sanskrit have almost completely merged into a single tense in Pali - sometime called the preterite but most often referred to as Aorist. the imperfect verb is said to be formed from the pres. stem and the aorist from the root; however, this is not an absolute and, the two can hardly be told apart. While, the perfect verb form has almost entirely vanished. As far as I know, only the third person (singular and plural) of the verb ah exists.

So that's a quick overview of tense and mood. The various Pali grammar guides out there use differing methods to classify verbs and employ different terminologies, so it can be hard to figure out what’s going on. Just to add to the confusion the Sanskrit grammarians often denoted their tenses by number and some Pali guides also follow this custom which can easily be confused with the root conjugation numbering.

We'll work through the tenses and mood in future posts, but for now we'll concentrate on the present tense and indicative mood, which is by far the most common.

Present Indicative Mood

The indicative mood is used to make factual statements and proclamations, express opinions, state general truths. It is by far the most commonly used verb form in the canon. It normally expresses contemporary time, but makes no distinction between simple and continous aspect, 'I walk' vs 'I am walking'. It also occasionally gets used to express recent past, close to the present time and also future, 'Certainly, I (will) go to hell'.
There is also what is called the historic present, which quite common, recounting past events as though actually happening in the present. 'At that time... there is...'

3. Base to inflected verb - Present Indicative formation

Verbs in Pāli, like English, distinguish three persons - namely: 1st, 2nd & 3rd person (I, you & other). The grammatical person expressed is differentiated by a set of inflectional terminations called personal endings. The personal endings also distinguish number: singular & plural; and voice (see below).
Thus these personal endings are added to a verb base allowing it to agree with its subject in number and person.

Present Indicative stems endings

	Active voice			Reflexive voice††
	Singular	Plural		Singular	Plural
3rd pers.**	-ti	-(a)nti		-te	-(a)nte, -re
2nd pers.	-si	-tha		-se	-vhe
1st pers.*	-(ā)mi	-(ā)ma		-e	-(ā)mhe (-ā mahe, -ā mha)

^* stem endings in -a becomes -ā- before the 1st person singular and plural endings: -mi, -ma, -mhe, etc. as indicated by brackets in the table. (The other stem ending aren't effected).
^** stems ending in -nā become -na before the 3rd person plural, and
†† stem ending in –e always add the infix -aya- before the reflexive endings

†† Reflexive voice

First notice the two parallel tables labeled 'Active voice' and 'Reflexive voice'. If you remember, a previous post explained the difference between active voice and passive voice sentences. Well Pali inherits a third voice from Sanskrit, sometime called Middle voice (from Greek), or Reflexive voice (and even 'passive' voice by some authors because that's its name in Sanskrit but is very confusing).
The reflexive endings survive as a relic from Sanskrit. Technically, the active voice implies: the subject is performing the action but is not being acted upon themselves, i.e. the action of the verb is impacting on an object different from the agent.

Jack kicked the ball

Reflexive voice, in principle, implies that the subject is both the actor/agent and patient of a sentence. Which means the agent themselves is being acted upon, - the action of the verb is being directed towards or being “for oneself”. Mazard suggests intransitive self-referential actions.

I went for a walk"
"I know, my mind

However, you’ll be pleased to know, the distinction in meaning between active and reflexive has mostly disappeared from Pali. The endings are rarely found in prose, though examples are common in poetry. But it is just these sort of endings that are hard to identify when parsing a word.

Now remember that after conjugation, the present stems end in either:-a,-nā,-e, or -o. So if we take these stems:
For example:

the root √pac, ‘to go’, conjugates to present stem ‘ paca ’:
the root √ki, ‘to buy’, conjugates to present stem ‘ kiṇā ’:
the root √dis, ‘to teach’, conjugates to present stem ‘ dese ’
the root √kr, ‘to make’, conjugates to present stem ‘ karo ’

	Active		Reflexive
	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
	paca (cooks)
3rd pers	pacati	pacanti	pacate	pacante
2nd pers	pacasi	pacatha	pacase	pacavhe
1st pers	pacāmi	pacāma	pace	pacāmhe
	core / coraya (steals)
3rd pers	coreti/corayati	corenti/corayanti	corayate	corayante
2nd pers	coresi/corayasi	coretha/corayatha	corayase	corayavhe
1st pers	coremi/corayāmi	corema/corayāma	coraye	corayāmhe
	kiṇā (buys)
3rd pers	kiṇāti	kiṇanti	kiṇāte	kiṇante
2nd pers	kiṇāsi	kiṇātha	kiṇāse	kiṇāvhe
1st pers	kiṇāmi	kiṇāma	kiṇe	kiṇāmhe
	karo (does)
3rd pers	karoti	karonti	karote	karonte
2nd pers	karosi	karotha	karose	karovhe
1st pers	karomi	karoma	kare	karomhe

Pali makes no distinction between the simple present tense and the continuous present tense, in contrast to English. For example, passati can mean both ‘He sees’ (simple present) and ‘He is seeing’ (continuous present). Similarly, pucchanti can mean both ‘They ask’ and ‘They are asking’.


 in the next posts I'll follow up on the Pali Verb moods...