Verbs are either simple or compound. The simple are those springs or
energic signs in human speech, which, mark the relation and connection
of the subject and attribute of a proposition; and affirm or deny the
agreement or disagreement betwixt things, as, man _is_ an animal.
Compound or concrete verbs also include adjectives and participles; or
the qualities and attributes of the subject of a proposition, as, man
_thinks_ or think is; sometimes only the subject, as _mae_, _eimi_, _I
am_, or _sum_; and frequently the subject, affirmation and attribute,
as, _walketh_, man is upon action. In some dialects verbs have been so
modified, as to denote or imply the modes, times, persons, genders, and
numbers of the things affirmed; and nominally distinguished, as verbs
active, passive, neuter, personal, impersonal, regular, irregular,
auxiliary, and substantive; tho’ according to their real use and
signification, all verbs seem to be substantive and auxiliary, and
either singly, or conjunctively, with adjectives or participles, formed
into attributive or compound verbs, express all modes of actions and
affirmations, as appears by the following instances; sum, I am, or,
_it is man’s existence_, es, the second person created or the feminine
gender, est, the second, first, and a third person born of the first and
second, fui, _I have lived or been_, fuisti, _thou hast lived or been_,
fuit, he the person born, hath lived or been; amo, I love or _am for a
woman_, the first person, amas, the feminine the second person, amat,
the third person produced, the third person, am-avi for ui in fui, _he
has loved or been loved_, the past tense; doceo, I teach or _give the
lowering action to man_, the first person, doc-es, the second person
or feminine gender, doc-et the third proceeding from the other two,
doc-ui, as in fui, I have lived or been taught, the past tense; lego I
read or _recall_, the first person, leg-is the second, leg-it the third,
and leg-i, _man read_ the past; audio, I hear, or, _spring the passive
sense_, au-di-is, au-di-it and au-di-vi, I have lived or been heard;
and the conjugating particles seem to be the degrees of comparison, as,
a, e, i, or as, es is, male, female, mankind, or earth, water and fire,
or motion and existences in general; and the persons of U _man_, and
thence all things of the masculine gender the first person, as, es, or is
signifying the feminine in different degrees and qualities, the second,
and at, et, it, the rest of mankind and things, the third person, am-us,
em-us, im-us, all men of the male kind of the first person plural, atis,
etis, itis, all except the first person singular of the second, and ant,
ent, int, all mankind and things in different degrees, except the first
and second person singular, of the third person plural; and thus may be
explained all the Latin and Greek modes of conjugating verbs.
Verbs are farther distinguished by grammarians into active, passive,
and neuter, as being expressive of actions, passions, or neither the
one or the other, but mere being or existing, as, _I love_, _am loved_,
_live_, _walk_, _or stand_; tho’ according to the signification of words,
there does not seem to be any real ground for the latter distinction,
for _to love_, _to be loved_, _to live_, _sleep or rest_, must signify
either actions, active passions and energies, or their privation and
passiveness. So that the distinction in this respect might be more
properly made into active and passive only, agreeable to the masculine
and feminine, the only proper distinction of nouns as to genders; all
actions, substances, and things, at least, as having relation to mankind,
being either masculine or feminine, and the distinctions made by the
Greeks and Romans being mostly arbitrary and contrary to the meaning of
words which ought to determine the genders of nouns.
Verbs have a designation of person, corresponding with the personal
pronouns; of number with the singular and plural of nouns, of tenses
as representing present, past, and future actions and things; and of
modes or the manner in which they ought to be expressed. But whatever
necessity there may be for a great variety of modes and tenses in
dialects, constructed upon arbitrary principles, it does not appear that
any more than one is needful for a natural language, or that the modes of
conjugating verbs or any other, are in fact expressible by human speech
any otherwise than by the whole form or order of inflection and things.
And tho’ present, past, and future, seem to be necessary expressions,
according to our present mode of conception, yet they are not in reality
any representation of time, but of our manner of dividing or reckoning
the changes of motions or number of actions in extension, which in the
eternal state of spirits, or perhaps in a vacuum, might be deemed as one
intire action or the present tense.
Simple verbs or affirmatives are all substantive and incapable of being
inflected themselves, but serve as auxiliaries in the affirmations and
inflections of compound verbs, tho’ alone, without the assistance of
compound verbs sufficient to express every mode of affirmations, of
actions and things, and fully correspond with the nouns and pronouns,
as for instance, _I am doing_, _have done_, _may_, _can_, _will_,
_shall_, _must_, or ought to do; thou, _art doing_, hast done, &c; he,
she, a man, or, John _is doing_, _hath done_, _speaks_, _speaketh_, &c.
We _are_ or _were doing_, _have done_, &c; besides, _id_, _ed_, with
their inflections ith and eth, and also _is_, added as affirmations in
the third person singular to compound verbs; which express attributes,
affirmations, and persons, and sometimes the subject and number, tho’
the number is commonly implied by the noun or pronoun. In the following
specimen of conjugating verbs, the persons, number, and actions or
tenses are expressed by different words, with very few variations of
terminations.
The Modes of Conjugating VERBS.
Numbers. Persons.
The present,
Absolute. Conditional.
1 { I { am, be, have, do, } may, can, would,
{ { love, teach, read, } should, or ought,
{ { hear. } to be, have, do, love,
{ { } teach, read, hear.
{
{ { are, be, have, }
Singular. 2 { you { do love, }
{ { teach, read, hear. }
{
{ { is, hath, doth, }
{ he { loveth or loves, }
3 { { teaches, reads, }
{ { hears. }
{ { are, be, have, do, }
1 { we, { love, teach, }
{ { read, hear. }
Plural. 2 { ye,
3 { they,
past,
Absolute. Conditional.
1 { I } was, have been, } might, could, would,
{ } had, did, } should, ought to have been,
{ } loved, taught or } had, done, loved, taught or
{ } teached, read, heard. } teached, read, heard.
{
{
Singular. 2 { you
{
{
{ { was, or hath been, }
{ he { had, done, loved, }
3 { { taught, read, heard. }
{
{ { were, or have been, }
1 { we, { had, done, loved, }
{ { taught, read, heard. }
Plural. 2 { ye,
3 { they,
and future tenses.
Absolute. Conditional.
1 { I } shall, will or must } shall, will, or must
{ } be, had, done, loved, } have been, had,
{ } taught, read, heard. } done, loved, taught,
{ } } read, heard.
{
{
Singular. 2 { you
{
{
{
{ he
3 {
{
{
1 { we,
{
Plural. 2 { ye,
3 { they,
Imperative.
1 Let me be, have, do, love, } Let us be, have, &c.
teach, read, hear. }
}
Singular. 2 Be, have, do, love, } Be, have, &c. ye Plural.
teach, read, hear, thou }
}
3 Let him be, have, do, } Let them be, have, &c.
love, teach, hear. }
Infinitive. Participle.
To be, have, do, love, Being, having, doing,
teach, read, hear. loving, &c. present.
To have been, had, done, Been or having,
loved, taught, read, heard. had, &c. past.
The feminine or endearing inflections of the second persons _thou_ and
_ye_ have been omitted, as needless, since they all agree with the
pronouns _you_ and _ye_, and the only changes are from are and be to
_art_ and _beest_, have to _hast_, were to _wert_, shall and will to
_shalt_ and _wilt_, and might to _mightest_, and do to _dost_; but to
make use of them in the masculine gender, would be depreciating it. And
the participle perfect, being superfluous, it has been likewise omitted;
for as _ing_ the present is compleat, so is _ed_ for the past or the
privative of springs or actions.
The signification of the conjugating verbs in the four languages is as
follows, viz. 1. Am, mae, ειμι, sum, _in full form of existence_; be, fi,
φυω, fio, _I live_; can, dichon, δυναμαι, possum, _in act_ or able to
act; may, amhay, ωμει, sim, _about acting_; would, could, should, might,
ought, buasun, ειην, essem, _the will or act sprung or past_; shall,
will, must, byddaf, εσομαι, ero, _the lower acting up, the spring of
human light, the lower things sprung up_; was oeddun, ῆν, eram, _man or
spring past_; have been, bum, ῆμην, fui, _acted in life_. 2. Are, ere,
or art, beest, wit, or idwit, εις, es, _the lesser spring, and it is the
spring of life_. 3. Is, it is, fi, id, idiu, εστι, est, _it is seen,
sounded, smelt_, &c; hath, _it acts_; had or ha-ed, _action past_; hadst,
_a female action past_; do or dost, _motion past_. 4. Are, ym, εσμην,
sumus, _men in the spring_; were, buasom, εμεθα, eramus, _men sprung_.
Let, bydd, εστο, esto, _extend_ or take thy place; to be, bod, ειναι,
esse, _the property of motion to beings_, which converts substantives
into adjectives; ing, _in action_; it is not, nid, ουκ εστι, non est,
_there is no motion_.
All English verbs which vary from this mode of inflection being erroneous
and irregular, ought not to be established by grammatical rules, but
restored to the primitive state in the present tense, and marked in
the past tense with the proper accent; or if it should appear to be
necessary, to add proper conjugations. But as verbs lose their qualities
or active state in the past tense, the English verbs ending in d and t
in the past tense, have been very properly diminished and substantived,
and accordingly contracted in their sounds, of ed to that of d and t, as
taught from teached, when the ch was accented hard, and a like the German
a or o, felt for feeled, checkt for checked, slept for sleeped, left for
leaved, gilt for gilded, bled for bleeded, fed for feeded, had for haed,
fed for feeded, fled for flyed, sold for selled, and such others as are
so contracted without any other variation, that are capable of a past
tense, except, _let_, _put_, _do_, _think_, and other imperatives, which
can form no perfect past tense, without the aid of the auxiliary verb
_have_, to express some degree of human energy or return to the creative
fiat. And as all other tenses seem to be arbitrary and indefinite, the
best way of expressing the minuter divisions of actions must be by
adverbs or numerals.
And as there is no sort of foundation or necessity for the participle
perfect, the best way of correcting those verbs which are supposed to
be irregular therein, would be to drop it as superfluous, and fully
as well expressed by the past tense, as help, helped, without holpen,
cleave, cleaved, or cleft, instead of cleave, clave, clove and cloven,
hang hanged, for hang hung. And as to the forming a regular past tense,
by reducing irregular verbs to their primitive state in the present
tense, the following may perhaps be no improper observation, viz. _all_
in fall, before the corrupt sound of the northern a, as that of o, was,
as it ought to be, accented, like _ale_ in pale, and marked with a long
accent, as signifying _from high_; its past tense accented short, as
_all_ in shall; and wrote _fall_ and not fell; the e not having then
taken the place of a, nor a, that of o; shake, signifying _a passionate
action of a subject_, is properly accented and wrote in the present
tense, but its past tense having partaken of the northern accent, it
then came to be wrote and accented _shook_, instead of _shaked_, which,
notwithstanding its long establishment by vulgar custom ought to be
rectified accordingly; and so as to swear, heave, freeze, abide, strike,
dig, and various other instances, where the e has assumed the place of a,
a of o, o of a, e, i, or u, of i, or any other change of vowels from the
present, to form the past tense; except such as _do_ and _did_, which are
different words, and of themselves incapable of any inflection. And the
English terminations _an_ and _en_, borrowed from the northern dialects,
add nothing to the meaning of our names, but the English, or Engli-Saxon
names, are of a southern or Celtic origin, and as fully expressive of the
meaning to which they are applied without them; except where they are
added to form the singular number, or to active names as substantiving
articles, as in all other Celtic dialects.