Page:The grammar of Dionysios Thrax.djvu/16

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Grammar of Dionysios Thrax.

and number, and showing activity or passivity. The verb has eight accidents: Moods, Dispositions (voices!), Species, Forms, Numbers, Tenses, Persons, Conjugations. There are five Moods: Indicative, Imperative, Optative, Subjunctive, and Infinitive. There are three Dispositions[1]: Activity, Passivity, and Mediality—Activity, as τύπτω (I strike); Passivity, as τύπτομαι (I am struck); Mediality, marking partly activity and partly passivity, as πέποιθα (I trust), διέφθορα (I waste), ἐποιησάμην (I became), ἐγραψάμην (I registered). There are two Species: Primitive and Derivative—Primitive, as ἄρδω; Derivative, as ἀρδεύω. There are three Forms: Simple, Compound, and Super-Compound—Simple, as φρονῶ; Compound, as καταφρονῶ; Super-Compound, as ἀντιγονίζω (I Antigonize), φιλιππίζω (I Philippize). There are three Numbers: Singular, Dual, and Plural—Singular, as τύπτω; Dual, as τύπτετον Plural, as τύπτομεν. There are three Persons: First, Second, and Third. The First is the person from whom the assertion is; the Second, the one to whom it is; and the Third, the one concerning whom it is. There are three Tenses: Present, Past, Future. Of these, the Past has four sub-species—Imperfect, Perfect, Pluperfect, and Aorist—which stand in three respective relations: the Present is related to the Imperfect, the Perfect to the Pluperfect, and the Aorist to the Future.

16. On Conjugation (συζυγία).

Conjugation is the consecutive inflection of Verbs. Of Barytone Verbs there are six conjugations, of which the First is characterized by β, φ, π, or πτ, as λείβω, γράφω, τέρπω, κόπτω; the Second by γ, κ, χ, or κτ, as λέγω, πλέκω, τρέχω, τίκτω; the Third by δ, θ, or τ, as ᾄδω, πλήθω, ἀνύτω; the Fourth by ζ or σσ, as φράζω, νύσσω, ὀρύσσω; the Fifth by the four unchangeables, λ, μ, ν, ρ, as πάλλω, νέμω; and the Sixth by a pure, as ἱππεύω, πλέω, βασιλεύω, ἀκούω. Some also introduce a Seventh Conjugation, characterized by ξ and ψ, as ἀλέξω, ἕψω.

17. On Circumflexed Verbs (περισπώμενα).

Of Circumflexed Verbs there are three Conjugations, of which the First is characterized in the second and third persons by the diphthong ει, as νοῶ, νοεῖς, νοεῖ; the Second by


  1. Διάθεσις, the word which Roman stupidity rendered by Vox (voice).