ON ETHNOLOGY. 
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The conditional may be regarded as the past tense of a subjunctive mood, 
in the principal as well as in the secondary phrase. Ex. ijadi tumi dmdke 
rndrite, dmi tomdkc jndritdm, if you had beaten me, I would have beaten you; 
1 /adi dmi sest/idne Aaiidm, iini o duhkha pditen nd, had I been there, he would 
not have experienced such distress. 'I'he same tense expresses sometimes 
the frequency of an action in the past time, without any conditional relation. 
Ex. dmi rdjtidydlatje liaditdm, I used to study in the Royal college. 
The intinidve in ite lias the suuic power as the infinitive of other lan¬ 
guages: thus tdhdke mdrite dmi dtii/dchl, 1 am come to beat him; dmdke 
mdrite deo, allow me to beat. Dr. Stevenson remarks, that almost alt of these 
Indian languages agree in forming an infinitive of very popular use, by add¬ 
ing the same Tetters that are used for the formation of the <lative singular 
of nouns. It needs indeed but little insight into the origin and definite 
nature of the infinitive to see that it is nothing but a verbal noun with dif¬ 
ferent, generally obsolete terminations of cases. Taking thU view, which 
has been confirmed by the comparison of many Indo-Gcrinumc languages, 
it is easy to see that the Bengali infinitive, ** kurite,” must be taken for a 
dative or locative of a verbal noun, like the English “ io do” while the Tamil 
infinitive, formed by the tormination kn or ka, represents to us the verbal 
noun in the accusative, just as the Sanscrit and Latin terminations in turn. 
The two verbal nouns ending in iyd and He may be regarded as two verbal 
adverbs, or as absolute and obsolete cases of a verbal noun. The former is 
employed for the past, the latter for an indefinite, often for the future time. 
The origin of them is clear, the one corresponding to the Sanscrit form in 
ya, the other being a locative of the past participle, with the regular change 
of I into /. Both these forms give a great advantage to the Bengali, because 
it is possible to express by means of them a whole phrase dependent on an¬ 
other, without employing conjunctive particles and without any regard to 
gender, case and number. ’I’he subject only must be the same io the prin¬ 
cipal and subordinate phrases, when the form in iyd is employed. Ex. tini 
pnstak pdth kariyd mhire gelen, he went out, after Imving read, or when he 
had read the book. E samvdd janiyd mugdha Iiaildm, having learnt this 
news, he became insensible. 
'I’he most usual form of the present participle has the samu termination as 
the infinitive. Being a verbal adjective, it has like the other adjectives no 
terminations for the cases, but it governs the same case as the verb. Ex. dpan 
putrakc mdritc dmi Idhdke dekhildm, I saw him beating his own son. 
As the infinitives nl ilu* Indo-Gerniatiic laugu.iges must be regarded as 
the absolute cases of a verba) noun, it is probable that in Bengali the infini¬ 
tive in itc was also originally a locative, which expressed not only local 
situation, but also movement towards some object, as an end, whether real 
or imaginary. 'I'biis the Bengali infinitive corresponds exactly with the 
English, where the relation of case is expressed by the preposition io. Ex. 
tdlutke mdritc dmi dsiydchi, means, I came to the slate of beating him, or I 
came to beat him; dmdke mdritc deo, give me (permission), Jet me (go) to the 
action of beating, u e. allow me to beat. 
Now as the form of the participle is the same as that of the infinitive, it 
may be doubted if ilierc is really a distinction between these two forms as 
lo their origin, tor instance, the phrase dpan pulrake mdritc dmi idkdke 
dekhildm, can be translated, 1 saw him beating his own son; but it can be ex- 
phiined also as, what they nonsensically call in Latin grammar accusalitus 
cum hijinitivo, that is to say, the infinitive can he taken for a locative of the 
verbal noun, and the whole phrase be translated, I saw him in the action of 
