A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India v3.c17.77

v3.c17.77

In this tense the point specially to be noticed is the tendency to simplify not only the root-syllable, but the range of terminations also. Having got the syllables *eyya* as the type of the tense, Pali seeks to avoid all further distinctions, and to use as much as possible the personal endings of the present tense. It sometimes conjugates the potential according to the types of other classes, and in this respect follows the lead of the present less faithfully in this tense than in the imperative. Thus, though in the present and imperative of *kar*, it follows the Sanskrit, and has *karoti*, *karotu*, yet in the potential it treats *kar* as if it belonged to the Bhû class, and has *kareyyâmi* as though from a Sanskrit *kareyam* instead of the actual *kuryâm*. There are other peculiarities about this tense which are not here noticed, as having no bearing upon the subject of the modern languages.