Sanskrit Verbs - Tense Systems - Present System

Present System

The present system includes the present tense, the imperfect, and the optative and imperative moods, as well as some of the remnant forms of the old subjunctive. The tense stem of the present system is formed in various ways. The numbers are the native grammarians' numbers for these classes.

For athematic verbs, the present tense stem may be formed through:

• 2) No modification at all, for example ad from ad 'eat'.
• 3) Reduplication prefixed to the root, for example juhu from hu 'sacrifice'.
• 7) Infixion of na or n before the final root consonant (with appropriate sandhi changes), for example rundh or ruṇadh from rudh 'obstruct'.
• 5) Suffixation of nu (guṇa form no), for example sunu from su 'press out'.
• 8) Suffixation of u (guṇa form o), for example tanu from tan 'stretch'. For modern linguistic purposes it is better treated as a subclass of the 5th. tanu derives from tnnu, which is zero-grade for *tannu, because in the Proto-Indo-European language and could be vowels, which in Sanskrit (and Greek) change to . Most members of the 8th class arose this way; kar = "make", "do" was 5th class in Vedic (krnoti = "he makes"), but shifted to the 8th class in Classical Sanskrit (karoti = "he makes")
• 9) Suffixation of nā (zero-grade nī or n), for example krīṇa or krīṇī from krī 'buy'.

For thematic verbs, the present tense stem may be formed through:

• 1) Suffixation of the thematic vowel a with guṇa strengthening, for example, bháva from bhū 'be'.
• 6) Suffixation of the thematic vowel a with a shift of accent to this vowel, for example tudá from tud 'thrust'.
• 4) Suffixation of ya, for example dī́vya from div 'play'.

The tenth class described by native grammarians refers to a process which is derivational in nature, and thus not a true tense-stem formation. It is formed by suffixation of ya with guṇa strengthening and lengthening of the root's last vowel, for example bhāvaya from bhū 'be'.