There are three regular conjugations, distinguished (as in Latin) according to the termination of the present infinitive in a, e or i; e.g.
There are two conjugations; the passive formation, now wanting inmost Indo-European languages, has been retained, as in Greek; thus kerko-iy, " I seek," forms kerko-n -em, " I am sought."
The latter acquired the Semitic language imperfectly from their conquerors; they expressed the verbal conjugations by periphrases, mispronounced the consonants, and so changed greatly, the appearance of the vocabulary, which also would certainly contain a large proportion of native nonSemitic roots.
Much of this must have taken place, according to the theory, in the prehistoric period; but the loss of weak consonants, of y, and of one of two repeated consonants, and the development of periphrastic conjugations continued to the end.
As in Provenal, the past participle of a large ntimber of verbs of the 2nd and 3rd conjugations is formed, not from the infinitive, but from the perfect (pogut, volgut, tingut suggest the perfects poch, volch, tinch, and not the infinitives poder, voler, tenir).
