ON THE COMPOUND TENSES OF THE VERBS IN re. I have lost something. He had intended to have that at our own cost. Have you heard the thunder? They had not melted the whole. They had been waiting for their luggage. Had you not corresponded with your friends? I (shall have returned)2 them1 before. You will have answered his letter. She would not have condescended to your prayer. He would have defended my cause. They must have come down this way. In case he may have nibbled at the bait. That was before he had given in his accounts. They must have waited longer. OF VERBS CONJUGATED INTERROGATIVELY. The preterit anterior, the imperative, and the tenses of the subjunctive are not used interrogatively. The verbs rendre, and all others which have but one syllable in the first person of the present of the indicative, are not used interrogatively; so that we cannot say : prends-je? vends-je? tais-je? mens-je? sers-je? &c. Another turn is given to the sentence, and we say: est ce que je prends? est-ce que je vends? est-ce que je sers? Usage, however, allows to say: fais-je? dis-je? dois-je ? vois-je? ai-je? suis-je? vais-je? The pronoun is connected to the verb by a hyphen, in simple tenses: finissais-je ? rendis-je? and with the auxiliary verb in compound tenses: ai-je rendu? aurait-il fini? And when the verb ends in a vowel, it is parted from the pronoun il, elle, on, by the euphonic letter t, with two hyphens aime-t-il? aime-t-elle ? aime-t-on ? The e mute when it terminates the verb, takes an acute accent before the pronoun je, as : aimé-je? do I love? eussé-je-aimé? should I have loved? OF THE FORMATION OF TENSES. The tenses of verbs are divided into primitive and derivative. The primitive tenses are those which serve to form all the others. They are : TABLE OF THE PRIMITIVE TENSES OF THE FOUR CONJUGATIONS. • In verbs of the third conjugation evant change into oive, oives, oive, evions, eviez, oivent; as recevant, que je reçoive. + This rule is not applicable to the third persons singular and plural, which, in all verbs are like the third persons of the subjunctive present. Observe that it is the first person of the indicative which forms the second of the imperative. K N.B. Instead of unnecessarily learning every tense of any regular verb, the student who understands clearly the above table, has only to learn the five primitive tenses in order to be able to conjugate it throughout, thus saving himself considerable time and trouble. * Among the verbs of this conjugation those in indre, or oudre, replace ds, ds, đ, in the three persons singular of the indicative present, by s, s, t; as, je joins, tu joins, il joint; j'absous, tu absous, il absout. In the third conjugation, evant, change into oivent, in the third person plural of this tense. The conjugation of passive verbs is not difficult. The participle past of the verb which is to be conjugated is merely to be joined to the auxiliary verb être. It is to be observed that in French the participle in passive verbs, like the adjective, agrees in gender and number with its nominative. he is esteemed, EXAMPLES: my brothers are esteemed, il est estimé. elle est estimée. This will be explained more fully in the syntax on Participles. OF NEUTER VERBS. A neuter verb is that which can never have a direct object after it; it may easily be known from an active verb, because we cannot add to it the words quelqu'un, |