Verbs Overview

Table of contents

1. Verbs - Definition
2. Verb Aspects
3. Dictionary Entry
   1. Conjugation

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Verbs - Definition

Latin, like English, has several parts of speech into which words can be classified. The first part of speech under consideration is the verb, defined here as a word that indicates action or a state of being. Take a look at the following examples in English:

• The defendant showed the evidence.
• You had my attention.
• The story was very long.
• The victims were wronged.

In each of these sentences, the verb is bolded and serves as the anchor of the entire sentence, communicating the idea that the sentence is trying to convey. Note that the verb can indicate action (“showed”, “had”, “were wronged”) or a static state (“was”). We’ll learn more about these distinctions as the semester continues.

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Verb Aspects

Verbs can appear in different forms, including infinitives (verbal nouns, like “to make” or “to do”) or participles (verbal adjectives, like “making” or “done”). For this first part of the semester, however, we’ll be focusing mostly on verbs that are conjugated (more on this in a bit).

As discussed in the page on inflection, we can change the endings of verbs to reflect different aspects of the verb through a process called conjugation. A conjugated verb, then, exhibits five major aspects that we can glean through the verb’s ending and the verb stem to which that ending is attached. Through this combination of stem and ending, we can figure out such aspects of a verb as who performs the verb’s action and how many of the actor there are.

The following is a broad overview of verbal aspects that we can identify through a verb’s stem and ending. We will reinforce these ideas as the semester continues, so do not worry if you’re overwhelmed by all of these ideas now.

1. person. The person of a verb indicates the relationship of the speaker of the sentence to the subject.
   • 1st person means that the speaker is the subject or is part of a group that serves as the subject. This is most often indicated through pronouns like “I” or “me” in the singular or “we” or “us” in the plural.
   • 2nd person means that the speaker is addressing the subject. This is most often indicated through pronouns like “you” (singular or plural) or “you all / y’all” (only plural).
   • 3rd person means that the speaker is talking about someone that is neither the speaker nor the addressee. This is often indicated through pronouns like “he, she, it, they” as subjects or “him, her, it, them” as objects. Also, a third-person subject can be explicitly named. For example, “The bees make honey” or “The sky is blue” – both “the bees” and “the sky” are examples of third-person subjects.
     
     
2. number. The number of a verb indicates how many of the subject there are.
   • singular indicates that there is just one of the subject. For example: “The boy kicks the ball” has a singular subject, “the boy.”
   • plural indicates that there are more than one of the subject. For example: “The boys kick the balls” has a plural subject, “the boys.”
     
     
3. tense. The tense of a verb indicates when the action of the verb occurs.
   • perfect tense indicates that the action of the verb happened instantaneously, at one single point, in the past (e.g., “She tripped and fell.”). It can also indicate that an action occurred in the past but has lasting effects into the present (e.g., “He has died” [the implication being that he died in the past and he’s still dead at the current moment]).
   • imperfect tense indicates that the action of the verb occurred continuously, over a period of time, in the past. Note the difference between the perfect and the imperfect; the former is a single point, like a photograph (“She fell”), while the latter takes place over a period of time, like a video (“She was falling”).
   • present tense indicates that the action of the verb is happening now.
   • future tense indicates that the action of the verb will occur later but hasn’t happened yet.
   • pluperfect tense indicates that the action of the verb occurred before another event in the past. For example, “he had died before the war ended” – his death came before the war ended, and he was still dead when the war did end.
   • future perfect tense indicates that the action of the verb will have occurred before another event in the future but will have lasting effects into that future moment. For example, “he will have died before the war will end” – his death will come before the war’s end, and it will last into that future moment.
     
     
4. voice. The voice of a verb indicates the relationship of the subject to the action of the verb.
   • The verb’s voice is active if the subject performs the action of the verb. For example, “The boy loves the girl.” The boy performs the action of loving.
   • The verb’s voice is passive if the subject receives the action of the verb. For example, “The girl is loved by the boy.” The girl receives the action of loving, even though she is the subject, so the verb is considered passive.
     
     
5. mood. The mood of a verb indicates how the speaker thinks about the quality of the verb’s action.
   • indicative mood indicates that the speaker considers the verb’s action a definite fact.
   • imperative mood indicates that the speaker considers the verb’s action a command.
   • subjunctive mood indicates that the speaker considers the verb’s action as less definite, a possibility rather than an established fact.

These five aspects apply mainly to conjugated verbs, here defined as verbs with a person and a number. We may also refer to conjugated verbs as finite verbs, since we limit (or make finite) the verb by giving it a subject with a person and a number. Other verbal forms exhibit only some of the aspects (e.g., infinitives and participles both have tense and voice but not person or mood); we will deal with those in later lessons.

So, in sum, a finite verb has some combination of the following five aspects:

1. person: 1st, 2nd, 3rd
2. number: singular, plural
3. tense: perfect, imperfect, present, future, pluperfect, future perfect
4. voice: active, passive
5. mood: indicative, imperative, subjunctive

The act of identifying the five aspects of a conjugated verb is called parsing. So, if I were asked to parse the verb habuit, I would answer: 3rd singular perfect active indicative. (We’ll learn much more about parsing and identification in the coming days.)

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Dictionary Entry

When you are learning verbs in Latin, you must memorize the way that the verb’s entry appears in a dictionary, such as in the Complete Vocabulary for this very textbook. You’ll notice that entries for verbs have five parts: the first four, in Latin, are called principal parts and the fifth, in English, is the definition of the verb.

Here are two examples:

• amō, amāre, amāvī, amātus - to love
• videō, vidēre, vīdī, vīsus - to see; (passive) to seem

Each of the principal parts gives you the stem for the verb’s forms in certain tenses and voices. Here’s an overview:

Not all verbs have all four principal parts. In such cases, there will be a – in the places where the verb does not have a principal part. For example:

• possum, posse, potuī, – - to be able to, can

Conjugation

The dictionary entry of a verb also indicates a group to which it belongs that dictates what kind of endings we can use to conjugate the verb in question. Confusingly, these groups are called conjugations, and there are four and a half major conjugations of Latin verbs. You can tell the conjugation of a verb by specifically looking at its second principal part, a form known as the present active infinitive, and looking specifically at the letters in which the second principal part ends:

• 1st conjugation verbs have a 2nd principal part that ends in -āre.
• 2nd conjugation verbs have a 2nd principal part that ends in -ēre.
• 3rd conjugation verbs have a 2nd principal part that ends in -ere (without a long mark over the e); note that pure 3rd conjugation verbs also have a 1st principal part that ends just in the letter -ō.
• 3rd -iō conjugation verbs have a 2nd principal part that ends in -ere but also a 1st principal part that ends in -iō.
• 4th conjugation verbs have a 2nd principal part that ends in -īre.

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