once in impv.). But in the perfect any characteristic consonant is wanting, and the ending is simply a. In the Veda, the syllable na, of problematic origin, is not infrequently added to both forms of the ending, making thana (rarely thanā) and tana. The forms in which this occurs will be detailed below, under the different formations; the addition is very rarely made excepting to persons of the first general conjugation.
b. The middle primary ending is dhve, which belongs to the perfect as well as the present. In the subjunctive of the older language it is sometimes strengthened to dhvāi. The secondary (and imperative) ending is dhvam (in RV., once dhva); and dhvāt is once met with in the imperative (570). In the Veda, the v of all these endings is sometimes to be resolved into u, and the ending becomes dissyllabic. As to the change of dh of these endings to ḍh, see above, 226 c.
550. Third person. a. The full primary ending is anti in the active, with ante as corresponding middle. The middle secondary ending is anta, to which should correspond an active ant; but of the t only altogether questionable traces are left, in the euphonic treatment of a final n (207); the ending is an. In the imperative, antu and antām take the place of anti and ante. The initial a of all these endings is like that of am in the 1st sing., disappearing after the final a of a tense-stem.
b. Moreover, anti, antu, ante, antām, anta are all liable to be weakened by the loss of their nasal, becoming ati etc. In the active, this weakening takes place only after reduplicated non-a-stems (and after a few roots which are treated as if reduplicated: 639 ff.); in the middle, it occurs after all tense-stems save those ending in a.
c. Further, for the secondary active ending an there is a substitute us (or ur: 169 b; the evidence of the Zend favors the latter form), which is used in the same reduplicating verbs that change anti to ati etc., and which accordingly appears as a weaker correlative of an. The same us is also used universally in the perfect, in the optative (not in the subjunctive), in those forms of the aorist whose stem does not end in a, and in the imperfect of root-stems ending in ā, and a few others (621).
d. The perfect middle has in all periods of the language the peculiar ending re, and the optative has the allied ran, in this person. In the Veda, a variety of other endings containing a r as distinctive consonant are met with: namely, re (and ire) and rate in the present; rata in the optative (both of present and of aorist); rire in the perfect; ranta, ran, and ram in aorists (and in an imperfect or two); rām and ratām in the imperative; ra in the imperfect of duh (MS.). The three rate, ratam, and rata are found even in the later language in one or two verbs (629).
