ACTIVE AND PASSIVE VOICE. 421 



istic for this upland language. The impersonal verb is usually without pre- 

 fix, and inflects like the other voices; some of their number also occur in 

 the active form. 



We reserve to the verb gi to he, exist, which answers to our verb to he 

 when used in periphrastic conjugation, the last place in this chapter, and 

 enumerate the eight voices of verhs in the following order: 



1. Active voice. 6. Causative voice. 



2. Passive voice. 7. Intransitive voice. 



3. Reflective voice. 8. Impersonal voice. 



4. Medial voice. 



5. Reciprocal voice. 9. The verb gt 



1. The active voice. 



Transitive verbs, in their active voice, have with them a direct object 

 or complement, either animate or inanimate, upon which the act performed 

 by the subject of the verb is directed. There are, however, many object- 

 less verbs, which do not require constant mention of their object in distinct 

 words, e g., to ride, to paj/ ; here the adding of to ride n horse, to pay nionei), 

 is unnecessary in most cases. But with others the sentence becomes defect- 

 ive if the object is not named, as with to smash, to throw, to press. The direct 

 object stands in the objective case, whether nominal or pronominal: nii a 

 shulotish shmukatana / am ivrtting n fjarment. A number of verbs can add 

 an indirect object to the direct object, the objective case in -sh being the 

 same for both: kni'iks ish hun nJ-i ! hand over that string to me! In this 

 volume the objectless and the objective active verb are both classed as 

 transitive verbs. The natural position of the object is after the subject 

 and before the verb, which, in declarative and interrogative clauses, usually 

 concludes the sentence. 



2. The passive voice. 



Active verbs turn into passives when the sentence is reversed so tha 

 the direct object of the active verb becomes the subject, and the former 

 subject, losing the quality of grammatic subject, becomes its logical subject, 

 and is pointed out as such b}' some preposition. Thus the sentence : Ti'tak 



