8: Grammar: Verbs (`ākhyāta`)
A verb (ākhyāta) is a root (dhātu) with an ending that says who acts, how
many, when, and whether the subject acts or is acted on. Kaccāyana spends a
hundred and twenty rules on how the endings are added; a reader needs only to
tell them apart, and this chapter is the table of what each ending looks like,
with the sentences of chapters 3 and 5 and the bonus chapter as its examples. Most of what does the
work of a verb in a Pāḷi sentence is not a finite verb at all but a verb-like
noun, a participle, an absolutive or an infinitive, so those end the chapter.
flowchart LR V["a verb form: root + vikaraṇa + ending"] --> T["the time or mood"] V --> P["the person and number"] V --> W["the voice"] T --> T1["vattamānā: now, -ti"] T --> T2["pañcamī: command, -tu"] T --> T3["sattamī: wish or possibility, -eyya"] T --> T4["ajjatanī: the past, -i"] T --> T5["bhavissanti: the future, -ssati"] W --> W1["active: viharati"] W --> W2["passive: vuccati"] W --> W3["causative: deseti"]
Reading a verb is three questions, asked of the end of the word first:
flowchart TD Q1["1. What is the ending? it gives the time, the person and the number (8.1–8.5)"] --> Q2["2. Is there -īya-, -e- or -āpe- before it? passive or causative (8.6)"] Q2 --> Q3["3. What is left? the root, to look up in Appendix D (8.7)"] Q3 --> Q4["Not a finite ending at all? a participle, absolutive or infinitive (8.8)"]
| section | covers | Kaccāyana | appendix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8.1 | what a verb form tells you: the eight sets of endings and their times, person and number, the symbols the book uses | {406}–{431} | I |
| 8.2 | the present (vattamānā): -ti, -nti, -si, -mi, and the eight classes that put a, ya, ṇā, o or e before the ending |
{414}, {423}, {445}–{453} | I, D |
| 8.3 | commands and wishes: pañcamī (ehi, caratha, desetu) and sattamī (labheyyaṁ, pabbajeyyaṁ, kareyya) |
{415}–{416}, {424}–{425} | I |
| 8.4 | the past: ajjatanī (udapādi, nisīdi, āmantesi, ahosi, avoca, paccaññāsiṁ), the a- put before the root, and the rarer hiyyattanī and parokkhā (āha) |
{417}–{419}, {428}–{430}, {519} | I |
| 8.5 | the future (bhavissanti: viharissatha, bhavissati) and the conditional (kālātipatti: abhavissa) |
{421}–{422}, {431} | I |
| 8.6 | passive and causative: -īya-/-iyya- (vuccati, paññāyati), -e-/-aya-/-āpe- (deseti, kāreti, pabbājeti) |
{438}–{444} | I |
| 8.7 | the verbs met on every page: atthi and hoti (to be), karoti, gacchati, dadāti, jānāti, vadati, passati, with their irregular forms |
{454}–{523} selected | D |
| 8.8 | the verb-like forms: participles (gato, vutto, viharanto, bhaññamāno, kātabbo), absolutives (sutvā, viditvā, anupagamma), infinitives (kātuṁ), and the “when X had happened” construction |
{524}–{623} selected | J |
Every section is built as the other chapters are: a short explanation, a table of the endings or shapes to recognise with the rule that makes each, worked examples from the texts, and one block of exercises on their sentences. The derivation of a form, the root’s own changes and the rules for each of the seven classes, stays behind the linked rule number and in Appendix I.