🗣️ 5. The verb

The Latin finite verb carries person (1st, 2nd, 3rd), number (singular, plural), tense, mood (indicative, subjunctive, imperative) and voice (active, passive) in a single word. The non-finite forms (infinitives, participles, gerund, gerundive, supine) are treated in chapter 6, the uses of the moods and tenses in chapters 7 and 10. This chapter is about the forms: the four conjugations, the three stems, the principal parts, the irregular verbs, the deponents.

Contents

1. The categories and the three stems
2. The personal endings
3. The four conjugations: present system
4. The perfect system
5. The passive voice
6. The principal parts and the formation of the perfect
7. Sum and its compounds; the irregular verbs
8. Deponent and semi-deponent verbs; defective and impersonal verbs
9. Tense and aspect
10. Mood
11. Word formation of verbs
12. How Mova handles it

1. The categories and the three stems

Bennett 1918 §§93–99. A Latin verb has two systems, the present system (also called the infectum, "unfinished"), built on the present stem, and the perfect system (perfectum, "finished"), built on the perfect stem. A third stem, the participial or supine stem, forms the perfect passive participle and the supine, and with them the whole perfect passive. The principal parts of a verb give these three stems:

amō, amāre, amāvī, amātum — "I love, to love, I have loved, loved (supine/participle)"

1. amō — 1st person singular present indicative active: the present stem amā- (with ā dropped before -ō);
2. amāre — present infinitive active: the stem amā- plus -re;
3. amāvī — 1st person singular perfect indicative active: the perfect stem amāv-;
4. amātum — supine (or the perfect passive participle amātus): the supine stem amāt-.

The passive of the perfect system is not made on the perfect stem but is periphrastic: the perfect passive participle with a form of sum (amātus sum, "I have been loved, I was loved"). Latin has six tenses in the indicative (present, imperfect, future, perfect, pluperfect, future perfect), four in the subjunctive (present, imperfect, perfect, pluperfect), and no future in the subjunctive (periphrastic -ūrus sim supplies it), no perfect imperative.

2. The personal endings

Bennett 1918 §96. The ending -ō of the present indicative and the future of the third conjugation; -m (and -r in the passive) in the imperfect, pluperfect, future perfect and subjunctive. The perfect has its own endings. The second singular passive may be -re (amāre "you are loved") against the infinitive amāre, which is told by the context.

3. The four conjugations: present system

The four conjugations are distinguished by the stem vowel that appears in the infinitive (Bennett 1918 §98): I -āre (amāre), II -ēre (monēre), III -ere (short e: regere), IV -īre (audīre). A mixed group of the third conjugation in -iō (capiō, capere) takes forms of the fourth in some tenses (Bennett 1918 §109).

3.1 Principal parts of the model verbs

3.2 The active indicative of amō

3.3 The active subjunctive of amō

The imperfect subjunctive is the present infinitive + the personal endings (amāre-m), and the pluperfect subjunctive is the perfect infinitive + endings (amāvisse-m); a quick rule that works for all verbs. The perfect subjunctive and the future perfect indicative are identical except in the first person singular (amāverim/amāverō) and in quantity (amāverīs/amāveris).

3.4 The present system of the four conjugations

The future of the first two conjugations has -bi- (amā-bō, monē-bō); of the third and fourth, a long vowel -am, -ēs, -et (regam, regēs, reget; audiam, audiēs). The imperfect has -bā- in all conjugations (regēbam with ē before it). The subjunctive has -ē- in the first conjugation (amem, with a changed), -ea- in the second (moneam), -a- in the third and fourth (regam, audiam); the imperfect subjunctive always has -rē- on the infinitive stem. The imperative is the bare stem in the singular; the plural adds -te (Bennett 1918 §§101–111).

The present third person singular is the most useful form in a text: erat inanis and ferebatur (Gen 1:2: Terra autem erat inanis et vacua, et tenebræ erant super faciem abyssi: et spiritus Dei ferebatur super aquas, Vulgate): the imperfect of sum and the imperfect passive of ferō, depicting the situation before the creative speech Dixitque Deus (the perfect, Gen 1:3).

4. The perfect system

The perfect stem takes the perfect active endings (§2) for the perfect indicative, and in the other tenses of the system the endings of sum:

(Compare the forms of sum in §7.) The perfect infinitive is the stem + -isse (amāvisse), and the perfect and pluperfect passive are the perfect passive participle + the present and the imperfect (and so on) of sum: amātus sum, amātus eram, amātus erō, subjunctive amātus sim, amātus essem, infinitive amātum esse (Bennett 1918 §§101–111).

Contracted forms. After -v-, -vi- or -ve- before s or r, the v and the following vowel may drop out: amāstī for amāvistī, amārunt for amāvērunt, nōram for nōveram, audierunt for audīvērunt; Bennett 1918 §116. The third person plural ends in -ērunt in prose, -ēre in verse and in solemn prose (Bennett 1918 §96, note).

In the sentence nihil … nihil hic munitissimus habendi senatus locus, nihil horum ora voltusque moverunt? (Cic. Cat. 1.1) the verb moverunt is the perfect mōvērunt with a plural subject made of several neuter words; the sentence has no conjunction and ends with the verb (chapter 9).

5. The passive voice

The passive of the present system is made with the passive endings of §2: amor, amāris (-re), amātur, amāmur, amāminī, amantur; imperfect amābar, future amābor; subjunctive amer, amārer; infinitive -rī (first, second, fourth: amārī, monērī, audīrī) or -ī (third: regī, capī); imperative amāre, amāminī.

The passive subjunctive: present amer, amēris, amētur…; imperfect amārer…; perfect amātus sim …; pluperfect amātus essem …. Three points of use:

• The agent of a passive verb is the ablative with ā, ab if it is a person, the plain ablative if it is a thing (chapter 7).
• Intransitive verbs form an impersonal passive: ītur "one goes", pugnātum est "there was fighting", ventum est "they came".
• The perfect passive participle with sum is both the perfect passive ("was made", an event) and a state ("is made"), and the English past participle covers both: Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres (Caes. B. G. 1.1) states a division as a fact of geography: "Gaul is (in a state of being) divided in three parts"; and facta est lux (Gen 1:3, "and light was made") reports the event.

6. The principal parts and the formation of the perfect

The present stem is predictable from the infinitive; the perfect stem and the supine stem are not, so a dictionary lists them (Bennett 1918 §§117–122). The first conjugation and the fourth are very regular; the second and third are the sources of the variety.

The verbs of the third conjugation have the most unpredictable parts: agō, ēgī, āctum; cadō, cecidī, cāsum; dīcō, dīxī, dictum; faciō, fēcī, factum; fugiō, fūgī, fugitum; legō, lēgī, lēctum; mittō, mīsī, missum; petō, petīvī, petītum; vincō, vīcī, victum; vīvō, vīxī, vīctum; scrībō, scrīpsī, scrīptum. The second conjugation: videō, vīdī, vīsum; iubeō, iussī, iussum; maneō, mānsī, mānsum; sedeō, sēdī, sessum; doceō, docuī, doctum. The first has a few irregular verbs: stō, stetī, stātum; dō, dedī, datum; iuvō, iūvī, iūtum; secō, secuī, sectum; domō, domuī, domitum.

The principal parts of the irregular and the most frequent verbs:

7. Sum and its compounds; the irregular verbs

7.1 Sum (Bennett 1918 §100)

Subjunctive: present sim, sīs, sit, sīmus, sītis, sint; imperfect essem (or forem); perfect fuerim; pluperfect fuissem. Imperative es, este (future estō); infinitive esse, perfect fuisse, future futūrus esse (or fore); participle: futūrus only. Sum is both the copula ("is") and the existential verb (Deus erat Verbum, John 1:1) and, as the auxiliary of the perfect passive and of periphrastic forms, the only fully grammaticalised verb of Latin. Its compounds are absum, adsum, dēsum, intersum, praesum, prōsum (prōd- before a vowel: prōdest), possum.

7.2 Possum

Possum (pot-sum): possum, potes, potest, possumus, potestis, possunt; imperfect poteram; future poterō; perfect potuī; subjunctive possim; possem; infinitive posse, perfect potuisse. Possum takes the infinitive: Nemo potest duobus dominis servire, "no one can serve two masters" (Matt 6:24); it has no imperative and no participle (potens is an adjective).

7.3 Eō, ferō, volō, nōlō, mālō, fīō

Bennett 1918 §§129–131. Eō is irregular in the stem alternation ī-/e- (īs, but eunt) and in the future ībō and the perfect iī (contracted: isse). The imperative nōlī with the infinitive is the standard polite prohibition: nōlī timēre, "do not be afraid". Fīō serves as the passive of faciō in the present system (fit, fierī) and has the perfect passive factus sum: Fiat lux. Et facta est lux (Gen 1:3, "Let there be light: and light was made"); fiat voluntas tua (Matt 6:10).

8. Deponent and semi-deponent verbs; defective and impersonal verbs

8.1 Deponent verbs

A deponent has passive forms with active meaning (Bennett 1918 §112). It has the active participles and the future infinitive and the gerund and supine, besides the passive forms: hortor, hortārī, hortātus sum (I) "encourage"; vereor, verērī, veritus sum (II) "fear"; sequor, sequī, secūtus sum (III) "follow"; largior, largīrī, largītus sum (IV) "bestow"; patior, patī, passus sum (III-iō) "suffer".

Verg. Aen. 1.5 · Latin Library multa quoque et bello passus, dum conderet urbem "… much he suffered also in war, until he should found a city …"

Passus is the perfect participle of patior with active meaning, and conderet is the imperfect subjunctive of condō in a dum clause (chapter 10).

Cic. Cat. 1.1 · Latin Library Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra? … quem nostrum ignorare arbitraris? "How long, Catiline, will you abuse our patience? … Which of us do you think does not know?"

Abutere is the second person singular of abūtor in the -re form of the passive ending (abūteris = abūtere), and arbitraris of arbitror; both have active meaning. In Late and Medieval Latin the deponent forms are often replaced by active ones or confused with the passive (chapters 14 and 15).

Some verbs are semi-deponent: the present system is active and the perfect passive: audeō, audēre, ausus sum; gaudeō, gāvīsus sum; soleō, solitus sum; fīdō, fīsus sum (Bennett 1918 §114).

8.2 Defective and impersonal verbs

Coepī, meminī, ōdī, nōvī have only the perfect system, with present meaning for meminī "I remember", ōdī "I hate", nōvī "I know", and coepī "I began" (Bennett 1918 §§133–136, with inquam, aiō, fārī). Inquam "I say" is placed after the first words of a direct quotation; aiō, ait; fārī. Impersonal verbs have no personal subject: pluit "it rains", oportet "it is proper", licet "it is allowed", decet, libet, taedet, pudet, paenitet, piget, miseret, and in the passive the impersonal use of the intransitive (ītur); verbs of the type pudet, paenitet take an accusative of the person and a genitive of the cause (chapter 7).

9. Tense and aspect

The Latin tense system mixes time and aspect (Bennett 1918 §§257–265). The first division is between the present system (action unfinished, in progress or repeated) and the perfect system (action finished): this is an aspect contrast, and in the past it distinguishes the imperfect (the background, the situation, the repeated or the attempted) from the perfect (the event, the fact, the completed act). A text of Latin narrative has a recognisable pattern of this contrast.

Four notes for translating: (1) the Latin perfect covers both the English present perfect and the simple past; (2) the future perfect is used where English uses the present for a future-time condition: sī quis fēcerit "if anyone does" (literally "shall have done"), dum cunctis inluxerit … iudicium mecum habeat (the charter threat, train-s247); (3) the perfect indicative of a verb of knowing (nōvī, meminī) translates the present; (4) the historic present may be mixed with the perfect in a single narrative (Caes. B. G. 1.3 above). Sequence of tenses in subordinate clauses and in reported speech is chapter 10.

10. Mood

The indicative states a fact or asks about a fact. The subjunctive has two families of use (Bennett 1918 §§271–281): (a) independent (in main clauses), with an attitude of will, wish, doubt or possibility: the hortatory (amēmus, "let us love"), jussive (amet, "let him love"), optative (utinam amet, "may he love"), deliberative (quid faciam? "what shall I do?"), potential (dīcat aliquis, "someone might say"); (b) dependent (chapter 10). The imperative is used for commands and entreaties: present (amā, dī, fac, fer, dūc) for immediate commands; future (amātō, estō, itō) for the law, the rules and the instructions of a formula: Si in ius vocat, ito. Ni it, antestamino (Twelve Tables 1.1; Latin Library) with the future imperative ito "let him go", antestamino "let him call witnesses" (the summoner). The negative command is not nē with the imperative in classical prose but nōlī/nōlīte + infinitive, or nē + perfect subjunctive (nē timueris); the Vulgate has nolite timere regularly (Et nolite timere eos qui occidunt corpus, Matt 10:28).

Matt 6:9–12 · Clementine Vulgate … sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum; fiat voluntas tua … Panem nostrum supersubstantialem da nobis hodie, et dimitte nobis debita nostra … "… hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come; your will be done … give us today our daily bread, and forgive us our debts …"

The verbs sanctificetur, adveniat, fiat are third-person jussive/optative subjunctives in prayer, and da, dimitte are present imperatives. The same three forms occur in the charter's imprecation: iudicium mecum habeat ante omnium creatorem, "let him have a case with me before the creator of all" (la_llct train-s247): the jussive subjunctive survives into the 9th century.

11. Word formation of verbs

The most important formations (Bennett 1918 §§155–157): the inchoative in -scō (calēscō "grow warm", from caleō; senescō; crēscō); the frequentative or intensive, from the supine stem in -tō, -sō (cantō from canō, dictō from dīcō, iactō "throw about" from iaciō, whence iactātus in terris iactatus et alto, Verg. Aen. 1.3); the desiderative in -turiō (ēsuriō); the denominatives from nouns and adjectives (nōminō "name" from nōmen; albeō "be white"; sitiō, dōnō); and the compounds with prepositions, whose vowel is weakened (chapter 1, §6). The preverb gives the verb a new meaning and often a new government: ex-eō, ad-sum, per-suādeō, cōn-ficiō; the prefix is often repeated as a preposition (ex urbe exīre).

12. How Mova handles it

The pipeline (2026-10-22). Mova analyses no Latin verb form; the UPOS (VERB or AUX for sum) and the FEATS come with the treebank. For the parser, en xpos-fill maps VERB and AUX to a Penn-Treebank-style tag from the FEATS: VB if VerbForm=Inf; VBG for a present participle (Tense=Pres) or a gerund (VerbForm=Ger); VBN for any other participle (so a perfect passive and a future active participle both become VBN); VBD if Tense=Past or Tense=Imp; VBZ if Person=3|Number=Sing; VBP otherwise. So the subjunctive, the imperative, the voice and the aspect are not visible in the tag, and the first and third persons plural of the present both become VBP. The same tag-derived pipeline reaches LAS 87.35 on LLCT dev (87.80 with gold tags; 2026-10-22).

UD conventions. The feature set of the Latin verb is VerbForm (UD has Fin, Inf, Part, Ger, Gdv, Sup), Mood, Tense, Aspect, Voice, Person, Number. The treebanks use the set differently: LLCT train has only Fin (14 645), Inf (3 675) and Part (7 775), and puts the gerundive and the gerund under Part with Aspect=Prosp|Voice=Pass (exigendum, vendendum); UD_Latin-CIRCSE train has Fin 2 369, Part 710, Inf 327, Gdv 18, Ger 4, Sup 4 (counts of 2026-10-22). LLCT has Mood=Ind 12 770, Mood=Sub 1 874 and a single Mood=Imp, Aspect=Imp 11 279, Perf 13 289, Prosp 1 527; Tense Pres, Past, Fut, Pqp. LLCT's FEATS for regnante: Aspect=Imp|Case=Abl|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Act, and the MISC column keeps the traditional labels TraditionalMood=Participium|TraditionalTense=Praesens (train-s1); for coepit Aspect=Perf|Mood=Ind|…|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin. The UD verb features of Latin do not agree across the treebanks in the way the traditional six tenses map to Tense and Aspect: the reorganisation of VerbForm (cecchini-2021-formae-reformandae-reorganisation-verb-form) and the morphological harmonisation (gamba-2023-latin-morphology-through) are the references. The perfect passive is analysed in UD as a participle (VERB with VerbForm=Part) plus the auxiliary AUX (est, sum) related as aux:pass; LLCT has 1 010 aux:pass (every one a form of sum) and 1 197 cop (train, 2026-10-22).

Where it stops. There is no Latin morphological analyser in Mova: a form such as amāverint (perfect subjunctive 3 pl. or future perfect indicative 3 pl.) is read from the treebank's tag, not from the word. A table of the paradigms of this chapter, with the principal parts, in a Latin morphology module would be needed to read texts outside the treebanks; LatInfLexi (pellegrini-2018-latinflexi-inflected-lexicon-latin-verbs, CC BY 4.0) is an inflected lexicon of Latin verbs that is a candidate resource, and Whitaker's Words (public licence) carries the verb classes.

Sources for this chapter. Bennett 1918 §§93–138, 155–157, 257–281; Allen & Greenough 1903 (paraphrased), Gildersleeve & Lodge 1895; examples: Cic. Cat. 1.1, Caes. B. G. 1.1, 1.3, Verg. Aen. 1.3–5, Twelve Tables (Latin Library); Vulgate Gen 1:2–3, 1:31, Matt 6:9–12; UD_Latin-LLCT; pellegrini-2018, cecchini-2021, gamba-2023-latin-morphology-through.

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