Before giving an example of the conjugation of a verb it will be well to examine the formation of these moods and their various tenses. At first only the simple tenses will be considered, that is to say those formed by the addition of suffixes to a verbal root. The compound tenses are formed by combining certain verbal forms with parts of the verb ‘to be.’
Formation of the Moods and Tenses of an Affirmative Verb.
All parts of the finite verb, except the optative and imperative, mark the person by the following terminations:—
| Sing. | Plur. | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | -n | 1. | -mme |
| 2. | -t | 2. | -tte |
| 3. | (-pi, -vi) or none | 3. | -vat, -vät |
In ordinary Finnish the third person singular receives no termination, but the final vowel of the root is lengthened in the present indicative, if not already a long vowel or diphthong. Thus, the roots anta, repi, tuo form the third person sing. present, antaa, repii, tuo. On the same principle the third person sing. of the concessive ends in -nee, the tense stem ending in -ne. In the imperfect and conditional the tense stem is used unaltered.
Monosyllabic verbs sometimes receive the termination -pi in the third person present, e.g. saapi, tuopi for saa, tuo. Another variety of this termination is in vi, used very frequently in the Kalevala and the Karelian dialect.
This termination pi or vi is obviously primitive and is akin to the plur. -vat which has the plur. suffix t. It is found in all the Baltic dialects in the form of b, p, or v, and sporadically in Cheremissian, but not apparently in the other languages of the Finno-Ugric group.
The indicative mood has two simple tenses, the present (also used as a future) and the imperfect.
The present indicative has no tense terminations, and is formed by adding the personal terminations to the root; the third sing. having no termination, is of course the simple root, and always ends in a double vowel or diphthong, except in the verb substantive on, he is. Thus, taking the root repi and adding to it the present terminations given above, we get for the present infinitive revi-n (by rule [35]), revi-t, repii, revi-mme, revi-tte, repi-vät.
The stem of the imperfect indicative is formed by adding to the root the vowel i, before which the last vowel of the root is changed or lost according to rules [3-9], [14], [21]. To the stem thus formed are added the personal terminations. Thus on adding to the root saa the termination i, we get sai, and this forms sain, sait, sai, saimme, saitte, saivat. Similarly the root tuo with the suffix i becomes toi, and the imperfect toin, toit, etc.; antaa forms antoi (annoin, [31], annoit, etc.).