Verbs, when Conjugated, have Number, Person, Mood, and Tense.

§ 123. Number.-When we say he read-s, we speak of an action performed by one person. In this case the verb is Singular. But, when we say they read, we speak of an action performed by more than one person. In this case the verb is Plural. When there is a positive distinction of form between verbs singular and verbs plural there is a positive sign of Number. In Latin, voco I call; whilst vocamus we call.

§ 124. Person. In the words thou speakest, the pronoun thou is of the Second Person, and the verb speak, when taken along with it, has attached to it the syllable -est. The syllable -est is an ending or termination. It shows that the word is taken with a pronoun of the second person. It is a positive sign of the Second Person. The sign of the Third Person is -s; as he speak-s.

§ 125. Tense. The forms call and call-ed are different. The presence of the -d is one sign, its absence anotherthe former being positive, the latter negative. A word with the sign of either past, present, or any other (such as future) time, is said to be in a certain Tense. The word call is in the Present, the word call-ed in the Past Tense. § 126. Mood. When we say John walks, we state something as a fact. We say positively that the action of walking is going on.

When we say John! walk! we give orders for something to take place; viz. the action of walking. We do not say that the action of walking is positively taking place, or going to take place. We only express a wish, or give a command, that it should do so.

When we say if John walk fast he will fatigue himself, we use the word walk in a third sense. We do not say that the action of walking is taking place, or has taken place, or will take place. Neither do we deliver an order that it may take place. We say, however, that if it do take place, something else will take place also; viz. that the

person who causes it to take place will fatigue himself. Now in this case there is the idea of conditions and contingencies. John's fatigue is contingent upon his walking fast; that is, it is the fast walking that John's fatigue depends on.

In John begins to walk, the word walk is in a different sense from any of the preceding; for it depends neither upon John, nor upon any conditional conjunctions. It depends upon begins.

In John walks, the word walk is in the Indicative Mood. In John! walk! the word walk is in the Imperative Mood. The word Imperative is derived from the Latin word impero I command.

In if John walk fast, he will fatigue himself, the word walk is in the Conjunctive Mood. In this case there is conjoined with the proposition in question another proposition. He will fatigue himself is one proposition; John walks fast is another. The word if connects the two, and this connection changes the mood of the word walks; which becomes walk. From this fact the mood is called Conjunctive; from the Latin word conjungo = I conjoin, or join together.

In John begins to walk, the verb walk merely states what the action is that John begins to perform. And this is an action without a direct agent. That to walk is connected with John is true. The connection, however, is anything but direct. It is also true that the person who begins to walk is a walker, or one who walks. This, however, is an accident. In such expressions as John refuses to walk, or John ceases to walk, there is no walking at all. All that John does is to refuse, or to cease to do something; and it is upon the Verbs refuse or cease, and not upon the Substantive John that the Infinitive to walk depends.

How slight, however, is the difference between refusing to walk and refusing the action of walking. Equally slight

is the difference between a Verb in the Infinitive Mood and a Noun. Slighter still is the difference between he begins to move, he begins a movement, he begins motion.

This makes the Declension of the Infinitive Mood, prevalent in Anglo-Saxon, and still to be found in its fragments in the present English, intelligible. At the present moment the Infinitives like to err, though preceded by a Preposition, and (as such) showing that they originated in an Oblique Case, are, for all practical purposes, Nominatives. To err is human; to forgive divine.

Here

To err=error; to forgive=forgiveness.

SIGNS OF NUMBER.

§ 127. In the words a-m speak-est, speak-eth (or speak-s), the sounds of -m -est, and -eth (or -s) respectively denote a difference of person. They also denote a difference of number, since they are found only in the singular. But this they do in a secondary way. They are truly the signs of persons. The only real sign expressive of a difference of number occurs in the past tense of the indicative mood of the verb substantive.

Sung and sang.-In Anglo-Saxon the vowel in the second person singular in the preterite of words like sing (sang, sung) was different from that in the first (ic sang, þu sunge). The same took place in respect to the numbers; e. g.

Ic arn, I ran.
Ic ongan, I began.
Ic span, I span.

Ic

sang, I sang.

Ic swang, I swang.
Ic drane, I drank.

We urnon, we run.
We ongunnon, we begun.
We spunnon, we spun.
We sungon, we sung.
We swungon, we swung.
We druncon, we drunk, &c.

There are no such forms in A. S. as ic (or he) swumm, or as we (ge or hi) swammon. Now this distinction of number is not adhered to in the present English. It is the author's opinion that the writers and speakers who say I (or he) sang, say also we (ye or they) sang; whilst those who say we (ye or they) swum, say also I (or he) swum.

SIGNS OF MOOD.

§ 128. The only instance in English of a verb in one mood being distinguished from a verb in another by any positive sign, occurs in the conjugation of the word was.

In the sentence John walks, as compared with the sentence if John walk he will be fatigued, there is a difference between the word walk-s (indicative), and the word walk (conjunctive). The conjunctive omits the sign of the person (-s). This, however, is only a negative sign, and consequently scarcely constitutes a true distinction in form between the two moods.

SIGNS OF PERSON.

§ 129. Sign of the First Person Singular.-Found in one verb only. In the word am (a-m) the m is no part of the original word. It is the sign of the first Person Singular Present Indicative. Beyond this, no word in English has, in any mood, tense, or number, any form of termination for the First Person.

§ 130. Sign of the Second Person Singular.-The usual sign of the Second Person Singular is -st, as thou call-est. It occurs both in the present and past tenses; thou called'st, thou spakest. Like the pronoun thou, it is rarely used except in formal discourse.

§ 131. Sign of the Third Person Singular.-The usual sign of the Third Person Singular is the sound of the syllable -eth, or of the letters s, z (or es); as he call-eth, or he call-s. The first of these two forms is only used in formal discourse. The Third Person is only found in the indicative mood, and in the present tense. We cannot say if he speaketh, or if he speaks; neither can we say he calledth, or he called-s, he spak-eth, or he spake-s.

Whether the addition be the sound of 8 in seal (as hit-s) of z in zeal (as call-z), or of the syllable ez (as hiss-ez), depends upon the same circumstances as the use of the same sounds in the possessive cases, and the nominatives plural.

Throughout the whole of the plural there are no signs of the persons; i. e. no changes of form :-we call, ye call, they call; we called, ye called, they called.

§ 132. In respect to Person the following peculiarities deserve notice.

Forms sungest and sangest.-In Anglo-Saxon, the word sing, and a great number of words like it, took in the past tense a different vowel for the second person from the one found in the first and third; e. g. Ic sang (I sang), he sang (he sang) were the forms for the first and third person singular; where the vowel was a. But the second person singular was pu sunge (thou sungest); where the vowel was u. In this way were conjugated (amongst others) the following verbs: swim, begin, sing, spring, ring, sink, drink, shrink, run. In all these words the second person singular of the past tense was formed in u, whilst the first and third persons took the vowel a; e. g. þu swumme, þu on-gunne, pu sunge, þu sprunge, þu runge, þu sunce, pu drunce, pu runne = thoù swummest, thou begunnest, thou sungest, &c. &c.; and, on the other hand, Ic (or he) swam, Ic (or he) ongann, Ic (or he) sang, Ic (or he) sprang, Ic (or he) rang, Ic (or he) sank, Ic (or he) drank, Ic (or he) rann = I (or he) swam, I (or he) began, &c., &c. There were no such