VIA: Lesson - Verb Basics
Verb Basics
Verbs are a great place to begin. Every sentence must have a verb. The verb tells the reader what the subject is doing. Learn more basics about Latin verbs below.
Verb Conjugations
Every Latin verb belongs to a conjugation, which is a family of similar verbs. Conjugations share similar characteristics and patterns. When you look up a verb in the Latin dictionary, it will likely look like this:
- amo, amare, amavi, amatus to love
- doceo, docere, docui, doctus to teach
The four parts of the Latin verb are called principal parts, the essential forms of a Latin verb. The principal parts will form the basic building blocks for all the various verb forms. For now, let's dig down to the bedrock and examine the first two principal parts of verbs more closely.
Examples:
- 1st Conjugation: amo, amare
- 2nd Conjugation: doceo, docere (docēre - but remember, our course does not use the macron, so you will not usually see it like this)
- 3rd Conjugation: mitto, mittere
- 3rd Conjugation -io: iacio, iacere
- 4th Conjugation: audio, audire
Nota Bene:
- The long mark over the ē in 2nd conjugation is called a macron. Macrons may or may not be present depending on the text you are reading. The macron is a later addition that some editors include to Latin texts. To correctly identify the conjugation of 2nd conjugation verbs, look for the -eo, -ere ending combination.
- There are four conjugations. However, there is a subset of 3rd Conjugation verbs called 3rd Conjugation -io. We will talk more about this when we learn about 3rd conjugation verbs in detail later.