Verbs
Bengali verbs are highly inflected and are regular with only few exceptions. They consist of a stem and an ending; they are traditionally listed in Bengali dictionaries in their "verbal noun" form, which is usually formed by adding -a to the stem (for instance, rakha = "to put or place"). The stem can end in either a vowel or a consonant. Verbs are conjugated for tense and person by changing the endings, which are largely the same for all verbs. However, the stem vowel can often change as part of the phenomenon known as "vowel harmony", whereby one vowel can be influenced by other vowels in the word to sound more harmonious. An example would be the verb "to write", with stem lekh-: তোমরা lekho (you write) but amra likhi (we write). In general, the following transformations take place: ô → o, o → u, ê → e, e → i, and a → e, where the verbal noun features the first vowel but certain conjugations use the second. In addition, the verbs dêoa (to give) and nêoa (to take) switch between e, i, a, and ê. If verbs are classified by stem vowel and if the stem ends in a consonant or vowel, there are nine basic classes in which most verbs can be placed; all verbs in a class will follow the same pattern. A prototype verb from each of these classes will be used to demonstrate conjugation for that class; bold will be used to indicate mutation of the stem vowel.
Read more about this topic: Bengali Grammar
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—Alexander Theroux (b. 1940)