50 



THE TEBB. 



[§§ 94-100. 



PAET III. 



THE VERB. 

 Chapter VIII. 



j^RELIMINAr^Y. 



§ 94. The Maithil verb delights in a redundancy of forms. Like 

 all partially cultivated languages, it has few parts of which there are 

 not two or three optional forms. These optional forms are not local pecu- 

 liarities, but are all used by the same speaker as his fancy or as the rhythm 

 of the sentence dictates. I cannot find out that they represent any 

 different shades of meaning. I shall throughout the following paradigms 

 give first the forms most commonly used, and shall then note after each 

 tense, the optional forms which I have been able to collect. 



§ 95. The Maithil verb is of three kinds — active, neuter, and passive. I 

 shall not deal with the passive verb now but shall treat of its peculiarities in 

 another section. The difference between active (or transitive) and neuter 

 (or intransitive ) verbs will be treated of further on in this section. 



§ 96. The verb has no moods, in the sense of those which we find in 

 Greek or Latin, — that is to say two or more moods, each with its own array 

 of tenses. It has, it is true, a conditional, an imperative, and an infinitive 

 form, but these have few tense foi-ms, and it is more convenient to consider 

 them as tenses, like the Icdlas (tempora) or tenses of Sanskrit. 



§ 97. Taking them in this sense, there are nine commonly used tenses 

 in Maithili, corresponding to the nine tenses, mentioned by Mr. Ethei-ing- 

 ton, as being commonly used in Hindi ; — viz. 1. the Present, 2. the Imper- 

 fect, 3. the Past, 4. the Perfect, 5. the Pluperfect, 6. the Future. 7. the 

 Retrospective Conditional, 8. the Prospective Conditional, 9. the Im- 

 perative. 



§ 98. These tenses have no number, but they make up for this by 

 having in transitive verbs each no less than twenty four personal forms, 

 each of which has many varieties. Intransitive verbs have half that number 

 of forms. 



§ 99. In the first place, it has two genders, and hence there are 

 twelve pairs of forms, one member of each pair being used when the subject 

 of the verb is masculine, and the other when it is feminine. 



§ 100. Again, there are three persons, the first person, the second 

 person, and the third person, each of which is determined also by the subject 

 of the verb. There are thus in transitive verbs four masculine and four 



