CONJUGATION. A term in grammar ap plied to a connected view or statement of the changes of form that a verb (q.v.) undergoes in its various relations. (See INFLECTION.) The forms usually included under this term are those that serve to mark: (1) Person, or the distinc tion between the speaker, the spoken-to, and the spoken-of: as (T) write, (thou) writest, (he) writes. (2) Number; as (John) writes, (they) -write. (3) Tense, or time; as (1) write, wrote, hare written-, shall write. (4) 1\lood, or the manner in which the action is presented. When the action is simply asserted, it is the indicative mood, as (be) wrote; when put as a supposition or condition, it is the conditional or subjunctive mood, as if he wrote. The imperative mood ex presses a command or request, and is generally used only in the second person, as write. The infinitive mood expresses the action without limi tation of any kind—to write; as it makes no affirmation, it is, strictly speaking, not a verb, but a kind of abstract noun. The two participles, the one expressing the action as in progress (writing), the other as completed (written), may be classed with the infinitive. as not affirm ing anything. The infinitive and the participles are sometimes called verbals. In opposition to the infinitive and the participles, the other parts of the verb are called finite. (5) Voice, or dis tinction between active and passive (see VERB) ; as (he) wrote (the letter), (the letter) was written (by him).
In English, and in most modern European languages, the greater part of these distinctions are indicated by separate words; in Sanskrit, (reek, and Latin they were nearly all indicated by prefixes and suffixes, or other modifieat ions of the word itself. The nature and origin of these modifications are considered under the head INFLECTION. All verbs do not take the same changes, even in the same language. Although the suffixes, e.g., may have originally been the same, yet they underwent, in course of time, different kinds of corruption or obliteration, de pending upon the nature of the sounds in the root verb. This leads to the verbs of a language
being arranged in different classes or conjuga tions. In Latin. for instance, grammarians recognize four conjugations, and verbs that can not be brought into any class are called irregular verbs.
In English there are two distinct types of the inflections of verbs: thus, I lore becomes in the past tense I toned, and in the passive voice I ft In hOred ; Willie he shakes becomes he shook and he was shaken. Verbs that, like lore, take d (or cd—sometimes t) in their past tense and past participle form one class or conjugation, and those resembling shake in their changes form another. The former class is by far the more numerous: but the latter includes the most com monly used and oldest verbs in the language. The mode of change seen in shake, shook, shaken is believed to be more ancient than the other, and is therefore sometimes called the old conjuga tion, but more generally the 'strong' conjugation, the other being the new or weak. The termi nology regular and irremda• is incorrect. The verbs belonging to the old conjugation are all of Saxon origin, and are primitive or root verbs; while derivative verbs belong to the other class. Verbs of the weak conjugation are pretty uniform in taking d or cd, although after certain sounds the d is of necessity pronounced as t, and is some times replaced by that letter in writing—dreamt For the vowel change in the strong conjugation, see ABLAUT. For further information on the con jugation of English verbs, consult: Lounsbury, English. Language, rev. ed. (New York, 1894) ; Emerson, History of the English Language (New York. 1894) : Skeat, Principles of English Etymology, vol. i. (London, 1887') ; and for language in general, Strong. Logeman, and Wheeler, Introduction to the Study of the His tory of Language (New York, 1891). See GRAM MAR and INFLECTION.