Lae 
_ Three prefent Definites. 
Inceptive. Imperfect. Perfect. 
Tam going to write. Tam writing. T have written, 
Three future Definites. 
Inceptive. Imperfect. Perfect. 
1 fhall be beginning, I fhall be writing. I thall have written. 
or going to write. 
Tuts philofophic divifion, as Lord Monboddo truly obferves, 
has never taken place in any language with which we are 
acquainted; but it feems univerfally acknowledged that the Greek 
in this, as well as in many other refpeéts, may challenge a pre- 
ference to moft if not all languages that have ever been formed. 
In the Greek a@ive and middle voices there are eight tenfes, 
and in the paflive nine, which, if you ftrike off Mr. Harris’s 
inceptive tenfes, whofe utility I do not well fee*, comes very 
near to his philofophic number, nor do they much differ from 
his univerfal tenfes in fignification. This merit, however, of the 
Greek language, Lord Monboddo has endeavoured, though with- 
out avowing fuch intention, to depreciate, by boldly ftriking off : 
two of thefe tenfes, and by roundly afferting, and calling to his 
aid, the affertions of fome ancient grammarians, that the fecond 
future and the fecond aorift mean nothing different from the 
firft 
* Take Mr. Harris’s example. « Ido not well fee how they can be called tenfes 
of the verb #e write; they are tenfes of the verb ¢o ga, or to begin, joined with the 
infinitive to write. I do not clearly apprehend how one compound tenfe can be 
made out of two verbs, unlefs one of them be a mere auxiliary. Scripturus ero 
may be a tenfe; but will it be faid that Snoev yap iusarv, Lib. 2d, Iliad, line 39, 
is a tenfe of any verb? If it be, of what verb? It may be a tenfe of philofophic 
grammar, but not of the grammar of any particular Janguage.” 
