Page:A grammar of the Bohemian or Cech language.djvu/52

 ﻿THE VERB.

Before discussing the active and passive forms of the verb, and their different meanings when compounded with preposi- tions, I shall discuss the great difficulty of the Slavonic verbs— a difficulty which they all have in common, viz. their division into aspects. The researches of philologists have proved that these aspects are really to be found in the primitive forms of the Aryan verb. Professor Miklosich showed many instances in which such aspects can be traced in other languages (see p. 31).

The aspects are of two kinds—perfective and imperfective.

The perfective aspect denotes either that the action has been quite completed or that it will definitely cease. This aspect has no present tense, strictly speaking, but a present form with a future signification.

Many of the verbs belonging to this perfective aspect are compounded with a preposition; as ponesu, I will bring.

The imperfective verbs express an action that is not com- pleted ; but this may be conceived either (a) as merely con- tinuing, or (5) as repeated at various times. The verbs of the first class are called ' durative,' those of the second class ' iterative.'

The perfective verbs are again subdivided, either (a) as they denote completion without regard to the duration of the action, e.g. to do a thing in one or more acts (unconditional perfective verbs); or (5) with reference to the duration of the action (conditional perfective verbs). In the last case the action may be either (a) one the beginning and end of which are simultaneous, as klesnoul, he sank; padnoul, he fell; the action being done rapidly,—once for all as it were : these verbs are called by Miklosich ' momentaneous,' and by Russian grammarians the aspect is called the ' perfect aspect of unity'; or (8) the action may not have a simultaneous beginning and end; and this class is further subdivided into—(1) cases where