A. The Principal Parts in the Active Voice are: (1) the Infinitive mood, (2) the Present, (3) the Imperfect, (4) the Past Participle. B. All verbs end in the Infinitive mood in en or u. C. Verbs belonging to the modern form of conjugation (also called weak verbs) are inflected by prefixes and suffixes only; they never change the vowel of the stem. Example.-lieben, to love. Imperfect, liebte, loved. Participle Past, geliebt, loved. D. Verbs belonging to the ancient form of conjugation (also called strong verbs) are inflected by prefixes and suffixes, but also by changing the vowel of the stem in the Imperfect, often in the Past Participle, and sometimes also in the second and third person singular of the Present Indicative. Their Past Participle always ends in en, whilst that of weak verbs ends in et or t. E. The following table shows the suffixes required for the conjugation of a verb belonging to the modern conjugation (weak verb). These suffixes are to be added to the Infinitive, after having dropped en or n ୧ Present, end. Past, Prefix* or augment ge, suffix et or t. F. The e of the suffixes est and et is usually dropped in the Indicative Present and Imperfect, the Imperative and Past Participle; but when there would arise any difficulty of pronunciation, it is retained. Thus : The e of et cannot be dropped after the d and t-sounds (d, t, th, ft), and after gn and cn; and Thee of est cannot be dropped after the same letters and besides those after s, ss, B, sch, and 3 (hissing sounds). When the e of et is dropped after s, s and t are generally contracted into st er reist, speist; but in cases of ambiguity an apostrophe is put between s and t: kos’te (nicht koste), ras’te (nicht raste) †. G. The Perfect and Pluperfect are formed by the help of the auxiliaries sein, to be, and haben, to have, together with the Past Participle. The Present of the Auxiliary is used to form the Perfect, and the Imperfect to form the Pluperfect (§ 79). H. The Future is formed by the help of the auxiliary werden. The First Future is formed by the help of the Present of werden together with the Infinitive Present of the verb to be conjugated, the Second Future by * Verbs with the unaccented prefixes be, emp, ent, er, ge, ver, zer, miß, and the prepositional prefixes durch, hinter, über, um, unter, voll, do not admit of the prefix or augment ge in the Past Participle, see § 105. This is likewise the case with verbs ending in iren. † Ros'te comes from fosen and means caressed, but fofte comes from fosten, to taste, to cost; ras'te comes from rasen, to rave, to rage, but raste comes from rasten, to rest, to repose. the same tense of werden together with the Infinitive Past of the verb to be conjugated. I. The First Conditional is formed by the Imperfect Subjunctive of werden and the Infinitive Present; the Second Conditional by the same tense of werden and the Infinitive Past of the verb to be conjugated. K. The Passive Voice is formed by the auxiliary werden throughout, with the Participle Past of the verb to be conjugated. ihr seid, you are (see the Manual, ihr seiet, you be. * The auxiliaries sein, werden, and haben are irregular in their conjugation. |