Page:Sanskrit Grammar by Whitney p1.djvu/231

 537. Verbal adjectives and nouns: Participles. The participles belonging to the tense-systems have been already spoken of above (534). There is besides, coming directly from the root of the verb, a participle, prevailingly of past and passive (or sometimes neuter) meaning. Future passive participles, or gerundives, of several different formations, are also made.

538. Infinitives. In the older language, a very considerable variety of derivative abstract nouns — only in a few sporadic instances having anything to do with the tense-systems — are used in an infinitive or quasi-infinitive sense; most often in the dative case, but sometimes also in the accusative, in the genitive and ablative, and (very rarely) in the locative. In the classical Sanskrit, there remains a single infinitive, of accusative case-form, having nothing to do with the tense-systems.

539. Gerunds. A so-called gerund (or absolutive) — being, like the infinitive, a stereotyped case-form of a derivative noun — is a part of the general verb-system in both the earlier and later language, being especially frequent in the later language, where it has only two forms, one for simple verbs, and the other for compound. Its value is that of an indeclinable active participle, of indeterminate but prevailingly past tense-character.

a. Another gerund, an adverbially used accusative in form, is found, but only rarely, both earlier and later.

540. Secondary conjugations. The secondary or derivative conjugations are as follows: 1. the passive; 2. the intensive; 3. the desiderative; 4. the causative. In these, a conjugation-stem, instead of the simple root, underlies the whole system of inflection. Yet there is clearly to be seen in them the character of a present-system, expanded into a more or less complete conjugation; and the passive is