1. The Present Tense To form the present tense of verbs of all conjugations, you simply take the stem of the verb (which includes its stem vowel) and add the personal endings. 2. The Future Tense To form the future tense of all conjugations, you take the stem of the verb, then you add on a tense sign for the future, and then you add the personal endings. For first and second conjugation verbs, the tense sign of the future is "-be-"; for the third conjugation, the tense sign is "-a-/-e-". 3. The Imperative Mood To form the imperative mood in the singular, you use just the stem (without any additional ending); for the plural you add the ending "-te" to the stem. (The exceptions to this rule are the third conjugation verbs "duc" and three others you haven't seen yet which lose their stem vowel short "-e" in the singular. Their plural imperatives, however, resurrect the stem vowel and are entirely regular: "ducite".) 4. The Infinitive The infinitive is just the stem plus the ending "-re" for all conjugations. I. First Conjugation: amo, -are PRESENT FUTURE IMPERATIVE INFINITIVE 1 _____________ _____________ 2 _____________ _____________ _____________ 3 _____________ _____________ _____________ 1 _____________ _____________ 2 _____________ _____________ _____________ 3 _____________ _____________ II. Second Conjugation: moneo, -ere PRESENT FUTURE IMPERATIVE INFINITIVE 1 _____________ _____________ 2 _____________ _____________ _____________ 3 _____________ _____________ _____________ 1 _____________ _____________ 2 _____________ _____________ _____________ 3 _____________ _____________ III. Third Conjugation: mitto, -ere PRESENT FUTURE IMPERATIVE INFINITIVE 1 _____________ _____________ 2 _____________ _____________ _____________ 3 _____________ _____________ _____________ 1 _____________ _____________ 2 _____________ _____________ _____________ 3 _____________ _____________
So you can see that the principal difference between the fourth conjugation and the others you've seen so far is the quality of the stem vowel. Conjugate the fourth conjugation verb "to come".
IV. Fourth Conjugation venio, -ire: PRESENT FUTURE IMPERATIVE INFINITIVE 1 _____________ _____________ 2 _____________ _____________ _____________ 3 _____________ _____________ _____________ 1 _____________ _____________ 2 _____________ _____________ _____________ 3 _____________ _____________
capio, -ere rapio, -ere cupio, -ere facio, -ere fugio, -ereLet's have a closer look at all this. Write out the present tense of the following verbs. Remember, a third i-stem verb has an extra "-i-" every where there's an "-i-" in the fourth conjugation.
THIRD (non i-stem) FOURTH THIRD i-STEM mitto, -ere venio, -ire capio, -ere 1st _______________ _______________ _______________ 2nd _______________ _______________ _______________ 3rd _______________ _______________ _______________ 1st _______________ _______________ _______________ 2nd _______________ _______________ _______________ 3rd _______________ _______________ _______________As you can see, the fourth and third i-stem verbs look identical. But there is a difference. Go back and put in the long marks over the stem vowel long "-i-" of "venio". The "-i-" is long in the second person singular and plural, and in the first person plural. Now compare the forms of "venio" with those of "capio" -- you can see the differences. The "-i-" of a fourth conjugation verb is long by nature and "wants" to stay long wherever it can. The stem vowel of a third conjugation verb is short "-e-" which turns into short "-i-" or "-u-". But it will never become long "-i-" regardless of what ending is added to it. Now, the difference between a short and long vowel may seem rather subtle to us, but look again. In Latin pronunciation, the accent of a word falls on to the second to the last syllable if the vowel in the syllable is long. If it is short, then the accent goes back to the third to the last syllable. So, what's the difference in the way these forms would have been pronounced?
capimus is pronounced CAH peh muhs audimus is pronounced owh DEE muhs Similarly capitis is pronounced CAH peh tis auditis is pronounced owh DEE tisSo the difference for a Roman between these verbs in some the forms would have been quite striking.
What about the future tense of the third conjugation i-stem verbs? They look just like the fourth conjugation verbs: stem(i) + "a/e" + personal endings.
THIRD (non i-stem) FOURTH THIRD i-STEM mitto, -ere venio, -ire capio, -ere 1st _______________ _______________ _______________ 2nd _______________ _______________ _______________ 3rd _______________ _______________ _______________ 1st _______________ _______________ _______________ 2nd _______________ _______________ _______________ 3rd _______________ _______________ _______________Now let's consider the imperative mood. In this case, there is no difference at all between the third i-stem verbs and the third non i-stems. And why should there be? They both have the same stem vowel: short "-e-".
THIRD (non i-stem) FOURTH THIRD i-STEM mitto, -ere venio, -ire capio, -ere SINGULAR __________ __________ __________ PLURAL __________ __________ __________
-ficio, -cipio The short "-a-" of the verbs "facio" and "capio" change (or "grade") to short "-i-" in compound forms of the verb -- i.e., when a prefix is attached. It will save you a lot of time if you learn to recognize the root "facio" in the verbs "perficio", "conficio", "interficio", etc. instead of having to treat every derived form as an entirely new vocabulary item.01/05/93