INTRODUCTION TO VERB CONJUGATION / First Conjugation

First Conjugation

  • Latin groups its verbs into four families called “conjugations.” Verbs within the same conjugation will follow a similar pattern of principal parts and the same paradigms (pattern of endings) in each tense. Now take note of some general features of Latin verbs:
  • Most regular Latin verbs have 4 principal parts:
  • 1st principal part: the 1st person singular, present active indicative form, e.g. amō
  • 2nd principal part: the present active infinitive, e.g. amāre
  • 3rd principal part: the 1st person singular, perfect active indicative form, e.g. amāvī
  • 4th principal part (can be one of the following, depending on the book):
  • the perfect passive participle, e.g. amātus, -a, -um
  • the accusative supine, e.g. amātum
  • the future active participle, e.g. amātūrus, -a, -um
  • Latin verbs can be conjugated in 6 tenses:
  • Present System: tenses formed from the “present stem”
  • Present tense, e.g. “I love,” “I do love,” and “I am loving”
  • Imperfect tense, e.g. “I was loving,” “I loved,” “I used to love”
  • Future tense, e.g. “I will love”
  • Perfect System
  • Perfect tense, e.g. “I have loved,” “I did love,” and “I loved”
  • Pluperfect tense, e.g. “I had loved”
  • Future Perfect tense, e.g. “I will have loved”
  • Latin verbs can be conjugated in2 voices:
  • Active Voice: e.g. “We love,” “She loved,” “They will love”
  • Passive Voice: e.g. “We are loved,” “She was (being) loved,” “They will be loved”
  • Latin verbs also have 3 moods:
  • Indicative: e.g. You love me. You do love me. You are loving me.
  • Imperative: e.g. Love me!
  • Subjunctive: e.g. Should you love me? You may love me. Would that you would love me! Let you love me!
  • The active voice personal endings of Latin verbs (also printed on p. 9 of your textbook) are as follows:

singularplural

1st person-ō or m-mus

2nd person-s-tis

3rd person-t-nt

  • Now look at this present (tense), active (voice), indicative (mood) paradigm of the first conjugation verb amāre, to love. The endings will appear in boldfaced blue.

singularplural

1st personamōamāmus

2nd personamāsamātis

3rd personamatamant

ConjugatingVerbs

  • To conjugate ANY Latin verb in the present system (present, imperfect, and future tenses), you need to follow a few simple steps.
  • STEP #1: Start with the verb in its 2nd principal part.
  • N.B. All Latin dictionaries list the first principal part of the verb followed by the other principal parts
  • If a dictionary includes a dot ( · ), it does that to show you where you can remove the first principal part ending and add the additional information listed to form the second, third, and fourth principal parts
  • SAMPLE ENTRY: quae·rō, -rere, -sīvī or -siī, sītus, tr to look for, search for; to try to get
  • quaerō is the 1st principal part
  • quae- + -rere = quarere, the 2nd principal part
  • quae- + -sīvī (or -siī) = quaesīvī(or quaesiī), the 3rd principal part
  • quae- + -sītus = quaesītus, the 4th principal part
  • TIP: In almost every case, 1st conjugation verbs are very consistent in the pattern of their principal parts: am·ō,-āre,-āvī,-ātus. This makes their principal parts easy to form, and you will be able to predict the principal parts for virtually any 1st conjugation verb based on this pattern.
  • Try to predict the principal part pattern of
  • cēnō
  • gustō
  • laudō
  • appropinquō
  • Can you predict the missing principal parts if given a first conjugation verb in either the 2nd (natāre) 3rd (pugnāvī), or 4th principal part (tractātum) only?
  • STEP #2: Remove the –re from the verb’s second principal part(remove the -ere if the verb is 3rd conjugation)
  • TIP: you may want to think of conjugating like a simple math problem.
  • Memorize this “formula” for conjugating:
  • (2nd principal part) –– (-re) = present stem of the verb
  • EXAMPLE:
  • 1st conjugation: (amāre) –– (-re) = amā-
  • 3rd conjugation: (quaerere) –– (-ere) = quaer-
  • STEP #3: Add an ending to the verb’s present stem
  • Now that you have the present stem of the verb, you can change the verb to whatever person, number, and tense you want (of present, imperfect, and future).
  • So how do I conjugate the verbs in these various tenses?
  • Present tense: just add the personal endings to the stem
  • All other tenses: you will learn the full endings later, but you can see that the basic pattern of personal endings is consistent:

ACTIVE VOICE

Indicative Mood / 1st Conjugation / 2nd Conjugation / 3rd Conjugation / 3rd-io Conjugation / 4th Conjugation

PRESENT

/ Pres. stem + ending / Pres. stem + ending / Pres. stem (+ vowel) + endings / Pres. stem (+ i) + endings / Pres. stem + ending
1 singular / par-ō / doce-ō / reg-ō / capi-ō / audi-ō
2 / parā-s / docē-s / reg-i-s / capi-s / audī-s
3 / para-t / doce-t / reg-i-t / capi-t / audi-t
1 plural / parā-mus / docē-mus / reg-i-mus / capi-mus / audī-mus
2 / parā-tis / docē-tis / reg-i-tis / capi-tis / audī-tis
3 / para-nt / doce-nt / reg-u-nt / capi-u-nt / audi-u-nt

IMPERFECT

/ Pres. stem + tense sign + ending / Pres. stem + tense sign + ending / Pres. stem (+ ē) + tense sign + endings / Pres. stem (+ iē) + tense sign + endings / Pres. stem (+ ē) + tense sign + endings
1 singular / parā-ba-m / docē-ba-m / reg-ē-ba-m / capi-ē-ba-m / audi-ē-ba-m
2 / parā-bā-s / docē-bā-s / reg-ē-bā-s / capi-ē-bā-s / audi-ē-bā-s
3 / parā-ba-t / docē-ba-t / reg-ē-ba-t / capi-ē-ba-t / audi-ē-ba-t
1 plural / parā-bā-mus / docē-bā-mus / reg-ē-bā-mus / capi-ē-bā-mus / audi-ē-bā-mus
2 / parā-bā-tis / docē-bā-tis / reg-ē-bā-tis / capi-ē-bā-tis / audi-ē-bā-tis
3 / parā-ba-nt / docē-ba-nt / reg-ē-ba-nt / capi-ē-ba-nt / audi-ē-ba-nt

FUTURE

/ Pres. stem + tense sign + ending / Pres. stem + tense sign + ending / Pres. stem + tense sign + ending / Pres. stem +tense sign + ending / Pres. stem +tense sign + ending
1 singular / parā-b-ō / docē-b-ō / reg-a-m / capi-a-m / audi-a-m
2 / parā-bi-s / docē-bi-s / reg-ē-s / capi-ē-s / audi-ē-s
3 / parā-bi-t / docē-bi-t / reg-e-t / capi-e-t / audi-e-t
1 plural / parā-bi-mus / docē-bi-mus / reg-ē-mus / capi-ē-mus / audi-ē-mus
2 / parā-bi-tis / docē-bi-tis / reg-ē-tis / capi-ē-tis / audi-ē-tis
3 / parā-bu-nt / docē-bu-nt / reg-e-nt / capi-e-nt / audi-e-nt

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