Conjugation of Verbs
Conjugation of Verbs¶
“Conjugation, or the inflection of verbs, consists in making the verbal root undergo certain changes in form, by the addition to it of certain prefixes and terminations to show the difference of Voice, of Tense, of Mode, of Person, and of Number.”
- Charles Duroiselle
“What does that mean!?”
There are a number of tenses and moods of verbs in Pāli.
| 1. | Present Tense | dhāvati | he runs, he is running |
| 2. | Past Tense (Aorist) | dhāvi | he ran |
| 3. | Future Tense | dhāvissati | he will run |
| 4. | Imperative | dhāvatu | he must run; run! |
| 5. | Optative | dhāveyya | he could run, he should run |
| 6. | Imperfect Past 5 | dhāvā | he ran (starting from yesterday, when seen) |
| 7. | Perfect Past | dadhāva | he ran (unseen) |
| 8. | Conditional | dhāvissa | if he would have run, then... |
Those are discussed in details in the Intermediate Pāli Course