Talk:Latin conjugation

[Untitled]

It would be nice to have a more complete description of the standard conjugations here. --Tb 05:45 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Note that the similarity between English is and Latin est is not a mere coincidence, but rather one of the consequences of them having a distant common ancestor

Are you sure about that ? Their common ancestor is quite distant (3000-4000 years) and most often used words change very fast. --Taw

Look in any etymological dictionary and you will see that it is correct. There are many other examples of Latin words which still resemble their English cognates (mater & mother, or sex & six, for example). Some words don't change much even over such long periods of time. --Zundark, 2001 Dec 6

That's right. The most commonly used words are actually the least likely to change, because they are used so often that changes to them can cause catastrophic misunderstandings. It's thought that the Northwest Caucasian languages diverged from the Indo-European languages about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, and Ubykh (Northwest Caucasian) and English (Indo-European) still share a couple of cognates, notably t'q^w'a, two. To use another example: It's not likely that the word can't (I know, originally two words, but now it's basically just one word) would begin to be pronounced with the short vowel of duck, even though that phonetic change is very slight. I won't explain why; the page would get pulled down. :S thefamouseccles 00:52 13 Oct 2003 (UTC)

The closest relations in English (not counting direct borrowings) are borrowings from Old French, I'm pretty sure. By the way, why is there a stub message in here? The article is way too long to be a stub, I think. - Gwalla 22:47, May 11, 2004 (UTC)

My 2 cents re common words. It is the most common words that change the most. Just look at the verb 'to be' in Latin, French, Spanish, and Italian. Then look at another less frequently used word like 'city', for example: city, cite', ciudad (dad in Spanish is the same as 'ty' in English), citta. If you don't like that try, felicity, felicite', felicidad. They are a lot easier to pick out as the same words than I am, ego sum, je suis, yo soy, and io sono. Pronouns and commonly used adverbs and conjunctions seem to change faster than anything. Father and mother are special words, which is why they don't change as much but still they change more than less used words. NB This is a purely subjective comment based on personal experience with language and not meant to be in any way definitive or quotable.

It is certainly true that the forms of 'to be' are irregular; but that's because these are all Indo-European languages, not because 'to be' is a common verb. The etymologies are perfectly clear, in fact, and happen often because a phonological change forces disambiguation and then forms are borrowed from other related verbs. For example, why is "eres" there? soy, es, somos, son, these are all regular formations from the old athematic pattern. Well, Spanish turned Latin's T ending on 3rd person verbs into D, and then later dropped it, so you get "tenet" -> "tened" -> "tiened" -> "tiene". (The E -> IE change is a regular palatalizing rule in Spanish.) But est doesn't have a vowel before the T (because it's the athematic pattern) so it became just "es" right away with no stop at "esd". Latin's "es" (2nd person) would then get confused. So people simply borrowed the Latin future "eras" to serve, and eventually that became regular, under the form "eres".

This page is one the one hand very long and complex because of the tables and because it bizarrely includes the entire text of its former stub article at the end, and on the other hand seriously incomplete because it's missing three conjugations and discussion of irregular verbs. I've sliced out the stub text that was duplicated in the tables, but it is likely that this will need to be separated out into separate pages for each of the different conjugations, with brief descriptions and a link to each from this page. - courier

How could we seperate the page, and which verbs do we need to conjugate? - ChristopherWillis

I think that individual pages for each case would work the best. Postscript2010 02:20, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Tables anyone?

Just a thought: maybe prudent use of tables could greatly improve the overall clarity of this article. Apart from that, I am also able to reproduce the forms of ferre from my "stock knowledge" (and I can check using my notes). Also I think it might be a sensible idea to add the Latin names of the various forms. They are sometimes a bit different and still in widespread use. Valete, Shinobu 21:17, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

StradivariusTV has tabulated part of this article and I think it looks much better. If no outcries against this are heard then I (or someone else) will tabulate this whole article (the bits where tables are useful that is). Shinobu 11:37, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

If you look into the history of this article and its historical snapshots, it used to be tabular until little more than a year ago. It was finely formatted, with diakritics and boldface emphasising suffixes. Then it was explicitly converted to the most simplistic list form:

15:21, 22 October 2004 Poccil (→Conjugation tables - replace with list)

In fact, this is my first visit to this page, and I know of no history of what was happening here at all (and this page, as you see, keeps no records). First thing I saw was how much better the table looked than the lists; I dug down the page history out of pure curiosity.

I have not a glimpse of a hint of an idea why the flattening was done. I can try to contact the user User:Poccil who made this change, but I wanted to ask here first, in hope that anyone is around from back then who knows why the tables were ditched. Otherwise, there is a risk of investing into new tabular formatting and then having to scrap it — yet for the same mysterious reason. (personally I would have resurrected the old format) —66.92.34.249 21:35, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

I don't know why he did that, but I can make a wild guess: Suppose he clicked edit, saw an HTML table, and one that used a most horrible size fixing thingy, he either decided he didn't like that, or that he didn't like HTML (the "it should all be wikitext" argument). Not knowing wikitext table syntax he just axed it. I've added the difflink to your reference. That way it's easier to check if anything has been lost. These are his combined edits: diff. The current version uses wikitext tables and shouldn't offend Poccil, I hope. Shinobu 07:01, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

I really don't mind the switch to tables; it turns out to be neater in the end. Peter O. (Talk) 06:59, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Ressurrect the tables! The lists are eyesores. They just look like arbitary Latin words strung together. The tables are divine. Rintrah 13:57, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Duplicates

Similar conjugation tables can be found at Latin grammar. Shouldn't we (re)move one of these? I have changed the tables, but feel free to revert if the linear format is better. Googlpl 22:02, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

This page

I've just replaced the old table with a very ugly table generated in Excel on the principle that it's better to be accurate than to look nice. If anyone can improve either table it would be really good. I'll try to but I've not got much time and this isn't exactly something I know much about. Once we have an attractive and accurate standard we need to start moving the other conjugations over to the tabulated style. I've also removed lots of duplicated information. I'd like to remove the word "radical" - I've only ever seen it for "root" in things written in French and things translated from foreign languages so I don't think it's standard but perhaps I'm wrong - can anyone elaborate?--Lo2u 20:45, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

New Tables

I am making new tables for the conjugations. Previously, I had used different tables from this topic. Now, I have borrowed and altered the tables from the Spanish conjugation topic.

Also, will someone please remove the irregular verbs here, and create another topic titled Irregular Latin Verbs so that he put them there. Thanks. --Blurrzuki 20:53, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi, that's some really impressive work you're doing. I've wanted to do that for ages and just haven't got round to it. I hope you didn't mind me replacing your table - couldn't work out how to put another column in and I knew you could get the old one in the history to work on. To be honest I'm not sure splitting the page is a good idea - some people still want to merge this with other Latin grammar pages and we'd probably find a merge notice within days. Also irregular verb conjugations are still conjugations so kind of belong here. In order to split we'd have to move this page to something like "Regular Latin verb conjugations" and turn this into a disambiguation page, which may be more trouble than it's worth. --Lo2u ^{(T • C)} 21:41, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Portandī can mean "of loving."

Really? As a novice, IMMHO, "amandi" means "of loving", and so "portandi" would mean "of carrying" or so. -- Leendert Meyer, 23:39 13 august 2006 (CEST)

Fixed. Stupid of me... Amāre and portāre tend to be the friendliest verbs, and I had confused the two throughout editing. I just didn't catch that one. Thanks for bringest this to attention. —Blurr_zuki t - c 21:36, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Third Conjugation

What does this mean: Their principle parts are all irregular? I know what the principal parts means, but not what "irregular" means in relation to it. I am trying to learn present, perfect, and future tenses for third conjugation verbs, in active, indicative form; but there are so many variations that its so difficult to group them easily for my purposes — e- stem, o-stem, and that other paradigm. Declensions were easier to learn.

Just remember that the perfect, pluperfect and future perfect always use the same method regardless of a verb's conjugation. Just remove the -ī on the third principal part and so on.—Blurr_zuki t - c 23:49, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Someone needs to change all the "principle"s erroneously used as adjectives to "principal"s. Rintrah 12:27, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Done. Shinobu 09:42, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I resolved my conjugation problem, but can someone please answer the question?

I haven't god a clue what it means, but, if it's any comfort, it's not in the article anymore ;-) Shinobu 09:42, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Fourth Conjugation

There are some mistakes in the fourth conjugation that I would like to correct, but I don't know how to generate a macron (long vowel mark) in Wikipedia. Can anyone tell me how?

• Below the editing text box, you can find a large group of characters that you can input into the text box by clicking on them.—Blurr_zuki t - c 23:46, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Future tense

Notice that the second person singular for portāre and terrēre are portāberis and terrēbiris instead of the supposed portābiris and terrēberis. The former inflections are used to ease pronunciation.

Reconcile this with the table? —66.251.24.86 02:08, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Moods

Some keeps stating that infinitive, supine, participle, gerund and gerundive aren't moods. Well they are!!! There called non-finite moods. My mother tongue is Dutch and in Dutch one says that amare, amari, amaturus esse, amatum iri, amavisse and amatus esse are Onbepaalde wijzen; with the word wijs meaning mood; you can't even say what these forms are without using the word mood, so not calling them moods in English doesn't make sense at all. 86.39.64.75 16:06, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Don't compare Latin to Dutch. Just because some words are similar, doesn't mean they are. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.214.168.133 (talk) 20:36, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Searched for Supinum on the Latin wikipedia, first sentence is Supinum est modus verbi, definitely a mood! Or is English a special language and does mood mean something else? I don't think so!

http://la.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supinum

86.39.64.75 16:10, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Compare Wikipedia's grammatical mood article: "Currently identified moods include conditional, imperative, indicative, injunctive, negative, optative, potential, subjunctive, and more. Infinitive is a category apart from all these finite forms, and so are gerunds and participles." Or Bradley's Arnold: Latin Prose Composition: "The functions of the Latin moods are as follows:— The Indicative.... The Imperative.... The Subjunctive....". AJD 16:29, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Then the article is not complete, it's Wikipedia for God's sake, not the Bible!

Furthermore it just sounds wrong, if the infinitive not be a mood, how do I have to call it in Dutch? I speak Dutch, and it's **** called "onbepaalde wijs" or "indefinite MOOD". Or should I speak English when I want to use the word infinitive in Dutch?

I guess you should probably say "onbepaalde wijs" if you want Dutch speakers to understand you. But you should probably not say "indefinite mood" if you want English speakers to understand you. This is English Wikipedia, so we have to try to use accepted English terminology (not translated from Dutch, or even from Latin). Unfortunately, there are different terminological traditions in Latin grammar for English speakers. See AJD's references above, for example, but then Allen & Greenough include the infinitive as a fourth mood, while the four participles, the gerund, and the supine are called "Noun and Adjective Forms" of the verb. Keep in mind that this grammar is over 100 years old and probably does not reflect current standard terminology. If it turns out that there is no consensus in reliable modern sources, then I think we should continue to call the non-finite forms "forms". (Note that there is consensus for calling tenses "tenses" and voices "voices", and the indicative, subjunctive, and imperative are definitely "moods" — the idea is to use a more neutral term in obviously controversial cases.) CapnPrep 21:33, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit conflict] I initially got confused when I was commenting on anonymous user's previous statement. As is witnessed by three extensive (German) grammars that I randomly picked from the shelves here, Latin is supposed to have only three moods: indicative, subjunctive and imperative. However, the infinitive could arguably be called a mood if its Latin name, modus infinitivus, is used as a standard (hence my confusion). See also [1] and [2]. Apart from that, at least one Dutch school grammar actually lists the infinitive under "modi" in its introductory section. Be that as it may, the supine, participle etc. are definitely not "moods". Iblardi 21:48, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I just found an English Latin grammar on my shelf (Gildersleeve and Lodge, unfortunately also over 100 years old). They also say three moods, and then "Outside of the Finite Verb, and akin to the noun, are the verbal forms called Infinitive, Supine, Participle, Gerund" (§112.5). CapnPrep 22:17, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Latin moods per Google

Where did y'all learn Latin? Infinitive is definitely a mood:

• Infinitive mood
• Supine mood
• Gerund mood - not so much

Rwflammang (talk) 16:46, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

In English, grammar books often make a distinction between 'mood' and 'mode', both of which are 'modus' in Latin and a single word in Dutch, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese. In English, 'mood' is often restricted to interpersonal stuff such as indicative vs imperative (which is what is common in English) and 'mode' is restricted to implied logical relations such as infinitive, subjunctive and the like (all of those oddities in foreign languages). It is a quite useful distinction, but it must fit the adopted theory for it to make sense. In a wikipedia article, I would prefer to adopt an explicit theory in English and use what the author said in the book. Daniel Couto Vale (talk) 07:43, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

dīxerīmus vs dīxerimus

The thematic vowel is short in indicative future perfect dīxeris, dīxerimus, dīxeritis and long in subjunctive perfect dīxerīs, dīxerīmus, dīxerītis. BUT... in many grammars you still find short -i- also in the subjunctive. I don't know which one is correct. In either case, there are tons of mistaken (or inaccurate) grammars out there! I wonder how it is possible. Can someone cite a Latin verse to show the actual length of the subjunctive -i-? Sprocedato 09:21, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I have found this verse (Aeneid VI 513-514):

Namque ut supremam falsa inter gaudia noctem
egerimus, nosti: et nimium meminisse necesse est.

To be read:

Námqu' ut súprēmám | fals' ínter gáudia nóctem
ḗgerimús, nōst': ét | nimiúm meminísse necésse 'st.

You know in what deluding joys we pass'd
The night that was by Heav'n decreed our last:
(Translation by John Dryden)

http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/verg.html http://classics.mit.edu/Virgil/aeneid.html

This is conjunctive perfect ēgerimus, from agō, with short i ! What then? Did both forms exist? The older one with long ī, as we would expect from etymology? Are there any proofs? Sprocedato 10:52, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, according to Rubenbauer and Hofmann (Lateinische Grammatik, p. 70, footnote) both forms are permissible, at least in poetical Latin: "In classical poetry, the i, both of the conjunctive perfect and of the indicative future perfect, is represented either short or long according to the exigencies of the verse." ("In der klass. Dichtung wird das i sowohl des Konj. Perf. als auch des Ind. Fut. II je nach Versbedürfnis kurz oder lang gebraucht.") Iblardi 22:42, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

So it is true: there was not a clear distinction between ind. fut. perfect and subj. perfect, except in the 1st singular person. Of the two forms one was probably felt as archaic (in 1st c. CE), the one with the long ī in my opinion. It would be nice to know the opinion of a Latin grammarian of those times. I think that the article deserves a note on this subject, as such it's misleading. People will use it as a reference, as I was doing myself when noticed the problem. Sprocedato 07:45, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

According to Fordyce's note on Catullus 5 (dein cum milia multa fecerīmus) the form with long i was preferred not only by Catullus, but also by Cicero, according to the rhythms of his clausulae. The short i version is found in early Latin, e.g. ubi nos laverĭmus, si voles, lavato (Terence, Eunuchus 580). Ovid has a long i in: vitam dederītis in unda (Ovid, Met. 6.313). Kanjuzi (talk) 12:45, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

@Kanjuzi Well pointed out!

@Sprocedato As a grammarian who studies this period, I can speak of the rhythmic regularization that took place during the extended Classical Period, starting at Cicero and ending at Nero. In this period, the lexical items split into three classes regarding perfectum inflections: the v-conjugation, the s-conjugation and the remainder conjugation. The reason for that was rhythmic. The tendency was to syncopate the verbs and shorten the penultimate syllable for the v-conjugation (and to a lesser extent of the s-conjugation) until the last syllable of the stem becomes strong. So you should expect the rhythm of verbs for the v-conjugation to be different from the rhythm of the other two conjugations. At the end of this period, we should find a long 'a' and short 'i' in "putārimus", a long 'e' and short 'i' in "dūxērimus" and "vēnērimus". This is the rhythm that was inherited in all neo-Latin languages.

Indicative perfect

• putāv - ī
• putā - stī <= putāv - istī
• putāv - it
• putāv - imus
• putā - stis <= putāv - istis
• putāv - erunt <= putāv - ērunt

Indicative pluperfect

• putā - ram <= putāv - eram
• putā - rās <= putāv - erās
• putā - rat <= putāv - erat
• putā - ramus <= putāv - erāmus
• putā - ratis <= putāv - erātis
• putā - rant <= putāv - erant

Indicative perfect future

• putā - rō <= putāv - erō
• putā - ris <= putāv - eris
• putā - rit <= putāv - erit
• putā - rimus <= putāv - erimus
• putā - ritis <= putāv - eritis
• putā - rint <= putāv - erint

Subjunctive perfect present

• putā - rim <= putāv - erim
• putā - rīs <= putāv - erīs
• putā - rit <= putāv - erit
• putā - rimus <= putāv - erīmus
• putā - ritis <= putāv - erītis
• putā - rint <= putāv - erint

Subjunctive pluperfect

• putā - ssem <= putāv - issem
• putā - ssēs <= putāv - issēs
• putā - sset <= putāv - isset
• putā - ssemus <= putāv - issēmus
• putā - ssetis <= putāv - issētis
• putā - ssent <= putāv - issent

89.14.76.136 (talk) 20:37, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Gerund/gerundive English-language bias

The following paragraph from the section on gerunds seems a bit harsh on the Romans:

The preposition ad can be used with a gerund in the accusative singular case to indicate purpose. For example, ad oppugnandum is translated as "to attack". However, when an object is introduced, Romans usually converted the gerund to a gerundive, agreeing with the accusative object. For example, "to attack the enemy" would become ad hostes oppugnandos, which, while technically grammatically wrong, was the normal way of using this construction. The gerundive is said to be "attracted" into the case of the noun, and occurred because Romans (mistakenly) thought that the gerund(ive) and the object should be in the same case.

It seems rather odd to claim that the native writers of a language were "technically grammatically wrong" when they were using the "normal way of using the construction," and also that they "mistakenly" believed in some sort of word agreement that we modern non-native writers find weird. This smacks of an overreaching grammatical prescriptivism that is perhaps more insidious when English is trying map itself onto Latin than the traditional kind where grammarians tried (and still try) to map Latin onto English. It's sort of like having a Latin writer (one of the few left) in the 21st century write, "Americans often split up verb forms. For example, 'to go boldly' would become 'to boldly go,' which, while technically grammatically wrong, was a normal way of using this construction. The infinitive is said to be 'split' into two parts, and occurred because Americans (mistakenly) thought that the infinitive verb form actually was composed of two separable English words." Even though infinitives have been split in English since the earliest years when "to" became the sign of the infinitive in English, people are still trying to argue that the usage is simply wrong. (I personally think that split infinitives are often imprecise, and I avoid them in formal writing, but trying to say that they are "wrong" ignores the way the English language has worked for hundreds of years.)

Perhaps the split infinitive question is a pet peeve among some people, so that may not be the best example. Perhaps it would be better to compare it to a Latin writer complaining about the lack of proper uses of the subjunctive mood in English.

In any case, I've known about this form for a long time, and I've often heard it referred to as though it were some weird grammatical anomaly. Even good grammar books sometimes like to pretend that it was some weird aberration of educated classical writers, while somehow the grammatically "purer" gerund construction eked its way through among the common people, in speech, and ultimately in vulgar Latin to emerge as gerund+object constructions in Romance languages. Unfortunately for this argument, there seems to be scant evidence of preferred gerund+object constructions in archaic Latin, and a number of usage scholars have argued that the gerundive is an older construction in general (and that the confusion existed when people started trying to substitute gerunds for gerundives, and not the reverse).

The thing is -- this usage is not "technically grammatical wrong" nor is the gerundive agreement "mistaken," since this is the preferred use of the gerundive. It's only grammatically "wrong" in any sense if English speakers mistakenly believe that the gerundive is some sort of future passive participle... which it isn't. That's why it's called a _gerundive_ and not a participle. This usage is one of the primary reasons that gerundives exist, and it's a usage specific to this verb form in Latin, so how can it be "wrong" or "mistaken"? If anything, textual evidence seems to indicate that the use of the gerund in such constructions is the aberration -- only used in certain cases to create a certain kind of clarity -- and the fact that the gerund+object form appears to be closer to how we understand English grammar certainly doesn't mean that the native writers of Latin misunderstood the forms of their own language. 24.91.135.21 (talk) 17:16, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I must say that you make many good points, but I think I would disagree with the Romans. My reasoning is thus: there is no clear, absolutely grammatically supported reason for a change from gerund to gerundive once an object is introduced that I have seen in my research. Also, just because something is preferred by a language's native speakers does not mean it must be correct. English has many great examples of this. Most of our language's speakers would employ a construction such as, "You are better than him," when they undoubtedly mean, "You are better than he (is)." It makes sense to me that the construction be kept constant with or without an object simply because it is not logical to make a change if one is not required, especially regarding something that is generally a tool for communication. It's just not "user-friendly" to do so, whereas the majority of the most ingenious or celebrated tools are "user-friendly". --Der Winter brennt für mich (talk) 07:40, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

"than he is" what? "Better than he is good"? You know, "him" looks more like an object either of the relation word "than" ("than him", "to him", "at him", "see him") or of the whole construction "better than" (like "you outperform him"). So, hard to say which is less logical! To me, a non-native speaker, it looks like the version where "him" is an object is slightly more logical and easier to use and comprehend, but the version where "he" is a second subject can also be substantiated and explained. - 89.110.13.246 (talk) 08:56, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

"I must say that you make many good points, but I think I would disagree with the Romans. My reasoning is thus: there is no clear, absolutely grammatically supported reason for a change from gerund to gerundive once an object is introduced that I have seen in my research." – What you said is contradictory. Romans said "putō", "putās", "putat" (I/you/he thinks) because there was a thinking subject and they said "pluit" (it rains) because there was no subject. Similarly, they said "ad cēnam parandam", "ad cibum parandum", "ad prandium parandum" (to prepare dinner, meal, lunch) because there was an object and they said "ad cenandum" (to dine) because there was none. So the sentence "there is no... reason for a change from gerund to gerundive once an object is introduced" is quite weird. The reason for the change is the introduction of the object. Daniel Couto Vale (talk) 07:35, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

If you have access to E.C. Woodcock's A New Latin Syntax, I recommend that you take a look §206 (page 160 in my edition), where he gives one possibility for why the gerundive is preferred over the gerund when an object is introduced. And, at any rate, I really don't think that you can say that a construction used by native speakers is wrong, unless you're a die-hard prescriptivist. And in the case of Latin it's extremely hard to hold a prescriptivist point of view, seeing how there are no native speakers of the language. We have to content ourselves with a descriptivist grammar. Arnsholt (talk) 12:27, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Conjugation derived from one form

The opening definition for this article has:

"Conjugation is the creation of derived forms of a verb from one basic form."

Although I appreciate that a verb like amō forms all its principal parts (amō, amāre, amāvī, amātum) from one basic root (i.e., AM-), it's confusing to state that we can derive the whole conjugation from one basic form. When conjugating any verb in Latin we look to several forms within its vocabulary to form our conjugation. We look to the 1st principal part for the present stem, the third for the perfect active stem, and the fourth for the perfect passive--to name a few. In fact, it is impossible to conjugate ferō from a one basic form (since its principal parts are irregular and not derived from a single root) and yet we speak of conjugating ferō and the verb "to be". We could change the sentence to read "Conjugation is the creation of derived forms of a verb from it's basic forms" and that would work, but the student is going to have to immediately come to grips with the concept of principal parts anyway so why not use the term?

Therefore, I'm suggesting changing to: Conjugation is the creation of derived forms of a verb from it's basic forms or principal parts.

Also, I will to set the term principal parts to point to the article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal_parts

Mlloyd57 (talk) 13:52, 5 September 2008 (UTC)Mlloyd57

Undid revision 264174032

Just to clear up any possible confusion: The edit in question changed ĭ (i with breve) to ī (i with macron). The macron indicates a long vowel, while the breve is to explicitly indicate a short vowel. Since the passage referred to the class of third conjugation verbs with a stem ending in short i (like capio), the i with breve is the correct letter, not i with macron. Arnsholt (talk) 22:03, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Gerundivum

Is the explanation of its meaning correct? I think that gerundivum in Latin always means or implies some sort of obligation. Please correct me if I am wrong.Svato (talk) 04:17, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Why mood-tense rather than tense-mood?

The convention in Latin and Greek grammar, at least in the grammars I've seen, is to phrase combinations of tense and mood as tense-mood (present subjunctive) rather than as mood-tense (subjunctive present). Is there a specific reason why the article doesn't use the more common word order? — Eru·tuon 21:50, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

There is a reason. The most general notion is mood (imperative vs indicative) because only indications can have primary tense (primary = relative to the time of interaction). For instance, there is no opposition between 'past indicative' and 'past imperative'. In turn, we tend to ommit some words when specifying mood. For instance, instead of 'injunctive indicative' for free indications and 'injunctive imperative' for free imperations, we say only 'indicative' and 'imperative'; and instead of 'conjunctive' for bound representations, we say rather 'subjunctive' in English. The notion of mood coming before tense is, however, an improvement. Daniel Couto Vale (talk) 15:20, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

Gerundive

Under gerundive, it says "The gerundive is the passive equivalent of the gerund, and much more common in Latin. It is a first and second declension adjective, and means, “(the verb) being done”." Is this in any way true? All the examples (both here and at the gerundive article) indicate that it's a kind of participle rather than a passive gerund, and means "that ought to have (the verb) done to it". Victor Yus (talk) 07:14, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

• Anyway, I'm going to change it - if there are any experts who know better, please improve. Victor Yus (talk) 12:11, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Suppletive verbs?

I'm sure sum/esse/fui/futurus and fero/ferre/tuli/latus are suppletive. Please add a note for that. Hill Crest's WikiLaser! (BOOM!) 15:25, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

OK, done. 4pq1injbok (talk) 12:30, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Two things

In re the section titled ‘Irregular future active participles’, looking at the table I should think this section should be called ‘Irregular supines’.

Also, it would be nice to know how old the various verb forms are (approximately) and how they came about. Some are really old (I once read that the præsens forms may derive from PIE suffices) while others to me resemble contractions with esse and I would assume them more recent. But my guesses are just that. Is anything known about this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.139.81.0 (talk) 23:53, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Etymology

I think this page would greatly benefit from a section or sub-page on the etymology of the various forms. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.139.81.0 (talk) 19:32, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Agreed. I have Sihler's Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin and would theoretically be in a position to do this, but oh! for the spare time. 4pq1injbok (talk) 12:54, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Locative case of the gerund

According to Gildersleeve and Lodge, 3rd ed. (1903), §33 Remark 3, and Allen and Greenough (1903), §49a, the locative singular of second declension nouns ends in -ī (and not -ō). Even en.wiktionary.org says so: wiktionary:Appendix:Latin second declension. This means that the locative case of the gerund should end in -ī. — Leendert Meyer 2001:838:305:0:0:0:0:3 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 12:39, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Latin conjugation#Future imperative

The text says the 2nd person plural imperative future I passive voice doesn't exist ("The second person plural is absent here").

• Some grammars from the 17th until the 19th century do mention such a form, e.g. laudaminor which in John Milton's grammar is translated as "be ye prais'd" or "be ye praised" (depends on the edition).
• Another grammar (C. G. Zumpt, Lateinische Grammatik) says there is no 2nd person plural imperative future I passive voice, too, but it also states that the indicative future I is used instead. So it gives further information. In the grammar it is also stated that there is the 2nd and 3rd person singular hortamino, veremino besides hortator, veretor, and according to the author the pural forms in -minor were guessed after seeing the singular forms in -mino.
• In another book it is mentioned that amaminor is an old form of amamini and that amaminor became restricted to the imperative while amamini became the indicative future I passive voice.

So there should be some further explanations or annotations in the article. -84.161.13.210 (talk) 23:10, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

There are many infrequent imperative inflections and among them this one you are talking about: "atque opperīminō!" (and [you two] wait [inside]!). There is no easy way to introduce these verbs because they are quite rare and poorly studied. Daniel Couto Vale (talk) 22:47, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

old forms, e.g. Latin conjugation#Infinitives

C. G. Zumpt mentions some older forms, e.g. ladarier as infinitive present instead of laudari. He also states that this form was still used by poets in the classical time. In his dictionary, Karl Ernst Georges mentions those forms too and states they're paragogic. Those forms should be mentioned too, especially when they were still used in Classical Latin. -84.161.13.210 (talk) 23:10, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

Laudare Pluperfect

In the overview table (the big one), shouldn't it be laudaveramus for 1st person plural Pluperfect act ind.? Now it's laudavimus, which is perfect tense, isn't it? TUBS (talk) 09:37, 5 February 2017 (UTC)✓

For terrere the 1st pl Pluperfect is also wrong. Should be terruerāmus. ✓ TUBS (talk) 13:07, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Guess what, it should be ēgerāmus in the Pluperfect 3rd Pl. Plz check all forms in that line of the overview table. They all might be wrong. TUBS ✓(talk) 13:14, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Fixed. Burzuchius (talk) 14:38, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Thx. Same table. Shouldn't it be "captus, -a,-um erās" instead of "captus, -a,-um erām" for 2nd S Pass Ind PluPerfect. TUBS (talk) 11:06, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Fixed. Burzuchius (talk) 15:32, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Further below. Same column, future. It should be "captī, -ae, -a erimus" instead of "captī, -ae, -a erāmus" TUBS (talk) 11:13, 6 February 2017 (UTC)✓

Fixed. Burzuchius (talk) 13:57, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Thx. Same table imperfect subj active. I suppose that laudāreēs is incorrect. I guess it should be laudārēs? TUBS (talk) 08:30, 7 February 2017 (UTC)✓

Fixed. 5.18.174.106 (talk) 13:08, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Thx. Same table, some more:

1. 2nd Sg. Present Act. Subj. of capere is supposed to be capiās (not capis)
2. 2nd Sg. Present Act. Subj. of audīre should be audiās (not: audis)
3. 1st Pl. Futur Pas. Ind. for capire should be capiēmur (not: capimur)
4. 2nd Sg. Future Perfect Pas. Ind. for all verbs given: it should be eris (not: erīs)
5. Future Act. Periphrastic Forms ("substitute for a real Subj.") of all verbs given: it should be sīs, sīmus, sītis (not: sis, simus, sitis)
   1. applies also to all Perfect Pas. Subj. forms of all verbs given
6. 2nd Sg. Perfect Act. Subj. of laudāre: laudāverīs (not: laudāveris, that would be second-person singular future perfect active indicative)
   1. same minor mistake in the 1st and 2nd plural: laudāverīmus and laudāverītis (not laudāverimus and laudāveritis)
7. 2nd Sg. Future Perfect Act. Ind. of terrēre should be terrueris (not: terruerīs)
8. 2nd Sg. Future Perfect Act. Ind. of laudāre should be laudāveris (not: laudāverīs)
9. 2nd Sg. Perfect Act. Subj. of terrēre should be terruerīs (not: terrueris)
   1. same minor mistake in the 1st and 2nd plural: -īmus and -ītis (not -imus and -itis)
10. 2nd Sg. Future Perfect Act. Ind. of agere should be ēgeris (not: ēgerīs)
11. 2nd Sg. Perfect Act. Subj. of agere should be ēgerīs (not ēgeris)
    1. same minor mistake in the 1st and 2nd plural: -īmus and -ītis (not -imus and -itis)
12. 2nd Sg. Future Perfect Act. Ind. of capere should be cēperis (not: cēperīs)
13. 2nd Sg. Perfect Act. Subj. of capere should be cēperīs (not cēperis)
    1. same minor mistake in the 1st and 2nd plural: -īmus and -ītis (not -imus and -itis)
14. 2nd Sg. Future Perfect Act. Ind. of audīre should be audīveris (not: audīverīs)
15. 2nd Sg. Perfect Act. Subj. of audīre should be audīverīs (not audīveris)
    1. same minor mistake in the 1st and 2nd plural: -īmus and -ītis (not -imus and -itis)

I'm not quite sure about that. I used some secondary resources to validate my claims. However, please check thoroughly before editing. --TUBS (talk) 11:50, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

"Capta eramus" sounds really weird. What neuter beings would make a statement in the 1st person plural pluperfect tense? Kanjuzi (talk) 04:13, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

Is it necessary that every cell of an inflection table makes sense? Or is the goal of the table to teach an inflection game? Daniel Couto Vale (talk) 23:03, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Well, I do think the table should contain forms which a reader is likely to see. Since this is only Wikipedia, not a very advanced and detailed grammar, it does not seem necessary to include forms which do not occur in major writers. Kanjuzi (talk) 17:03, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

sense of endings

Why verbs are divided in -āre, -ēre, -ĕre and -īre? Were originally verbs in -āre transitive, in -īre intransitive and so on?--Manfariel (talk) 01:26, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

That's a very interesting question. -ā- verbs are usually transitive, -ē- verbs are often (but not always) intransitive. The choice between -io/-ere and -io/-īre largely depends on the length of the first ayllable: capere, facere, conspicere, iacere, fodere etc, but audīre, pūnīre, custōdīre, vincīre (venīre and impedīre are exceptions). Kanjuzi (talk) 18:39, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

Actually, the focus was most of the time in the indicative present active 2nd person endings "-ās, -ēs, is, īs". It was quite recently that the verbs were regrouped according to the last vowel of infinitive verbs. This only happened once it became common to classify the vocabulary items of neo-latin languages in this way. I have old dictionaries where this is not the case. However, in both cases, there are four endings for five conjugations. Daniel Couto Vale (talk) 23:12, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Perfective vs. Imperfective

I believe these terms are used incorrectly in the article as it now stands. The Present and Future tenses in Latin can have a perfective meaning, as understood in modern linguistics. It would be better to adopt another term, such as "present system" tenses for example. Kanjuzi (talk) 12:51, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

Hallo @Kanjuzi, whichever tense term we use for the stems will be wrong from the perspective of modern linguistics. Both the opposition between "perfect" vs "imperfect" and that between "past" vs "present" vs "future" are not realised systematically by the stem. Yes, "putābam" usually represents "present in past" and the "putā" stem realises a secondary present tense; and yes, "putāveram" usually represents "past in past" and the "putāv" stem realises a secondary past tense. However, this secondary tense system only occurs for some verbs with those stems, not for all. For instance, "putāvī" usually represents a "past" event ("I thought"), rarely a "past in present" ("I've thought"); and "putō" almost always represents a "present" event ("I think"), not a "present in present" ("[while] I am thinking"). The only way to avoid this kind of problem is to give names that are taken from the words themselves, like "ō"-aspect stems for "put"/"puta"/"putā", "ī"-aspect stem for "putāv" and "ū"-aspect stem for "putāt". This is what I do when I write academic papers on this topic. If you want a reference, I can give one to you. Daniel Couto Vale (talk) 15:38, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

"o-aspect stems" etc. is not a standard term. You can't just invent your own terminology in a Wikipedia article, but you have to use the standard terms. The solution is to use the traditional terms infectum and perfectum, I suggest. Kanjuzi (talk) 18:43, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

@Kanjuzi "This is what I do when I write academic papers on this topic. If you want a reference, I can give one to you." - I did not say that I give names to aspects in wikipedia articles. I do this in academic papers on this topic (see tense/mode and agreement sections of this paper). Using formative suffixes as classes is a common practice in morphology. For instance, we talk about the 'bā'-affix or the 'bā'-paradigm instead of saying 'imperfect' when we want to discuss the evolving meaning of that affix (see example paper). Otherwise, the term 'imperfect' prevents a discussion about when an 'imperfect' meaning became prevalent and why it did. The point of my comment was another one. I wanted to say that the term 'present system' is as bad as the current term because 'present' is not what these verbs systematically mean. For instance, "putābam" in the sense of "I used to think" does not represent a 'present' event in any way, but it does so in the sense of "I was thinking on you when he entered the room". The term 'īnfectum system', as you suggest, is less bad because less people read a meaning into that term. However, this term also becomes problamatic as soon as we talk about "īnfectum" ("not done") as a meaning. In other words, which names are good or bad depends on what are the other terms we need for the argumentation and what are the other uses of that term in common language. Good terms do not cause confusion in either way. Daniel Couto Vale (talk) 11:41, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

Overview of tenses and moods

I found the table that was recently removed very helpful. Could we discuss? --Macrakis (talk) 19:29, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

What has it got to do with "Number of conjugations" (in which section it was)? What is it supposed to show? What does it show that isn't included already in the article lower down? What has it got to do with conjugations, since none of the forms given is actually conjugated? From what grammar is this scheme cited? Kanjuzi (talk) 03:38, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

I agree that there may be a better place to include it in the article.

Not sure what you mean that "none of the forms given is actually conjugated". They are conjugated for aspect, tense, mood, and voice, but not for person and number. As I say, I find it a useful overview. --Macrakis (talk) 16:28, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

There is an article with this kind of overview, namely Latin verb paradigms. Maybe you can insert a reference to it in a suitable place. 2A01:598:B1A4:6E3:E10A:6F08:8757:8A74 (talk) 17:30, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

Absurd Latin

Why include an example like Arma haec facillima laudātū erant 'These arms were very easy to praise' instead of a real one from a Latin author? Not only does the supine laudatu not occur in any author, but the meaning of the sentence itself is so absurd and improbable that it could only belong in a school book. Is this article about the real Latin language as used by Latin authors, or the artificial made-up Latin of school books? Kanjuzi (talk) 04:50, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

Inconsistent example verbs

In the Regular conjugations section, one set of verbs is used (amo, video, duco, capio, audio), while in the Non-finite forms section, another set of verbs is used (laudo, terreo, peto, capio, audio).

I'm assuming the verbs are currently different because rewriting an entire section would be more trouble than it's worth, but is there a reason two different sets were originally chosen? --Guypeter4 (talk) 13:39, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

That's very true, it's inconsistent. The article is incompletely revised. But which verbs to use? In the tables, amo is certainly more convenient than laudo, since laudo takes up more space. Video is perhaps not a good choice, since although it's very common, in the passive it changes its meaning to "seem". Terreo is OK but again it's a bit long; perhaps we should use moneo. Peto is not a very good choice since the perfect tense petivi is not typical of 3rd conjugation verbs; also the meaning in English is harder to grasp than duco. Kennedy uses rego for the 3rd conjugation, but "rectus est" in Latin authors doesn't usually mean "he was ruled" but "it is straight". "Ductus est" is very common, much more common than "petitus est", as well as easy to understand. Kanjuzi (talk) 18:18, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

The most frequent verbs for each conjugation during Nero's rule are: putō, videō, audiō, capiō, dīcō. I did this statistics when writing the grammar book I am trying to publish. Since I do not intend that such tables have only attested verbs (I want to teach the inflections, not the meaning, with them), I found this set to be a good option. Daniel Couto Vale (talk) 23:25, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Splitting the article in two

@Kanjuzi, @Macrakis, @Burzuchius, @Mlloyd57, @Sprocedato, @Iblardi, @Blurrzuki, @Gerbrant, @Rintrah,

Would you all agree to split this article into two? One for the verb paradigms (present indicative, future indicative...) and one for the verb classes (1st conjugation, 2nd conjugation...). This would make the structure of the two articles much more clear. For instance, the former can have one subsection per tense-mode option and the latter can have one subsection per verb class.

Please suggest names. If you agree, I shall go for: "Latin verb paradigms" ("Latin conjugations" redirect here), "Latin verb classes". Of course, I'll link one article to the other at the beginning.

If enough of you agree, I can make the change during Week 21 of 2023. I write this on thursday in Week 20 of 2023. Daniel Couto Vale (talk) 14:24, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

No, I don't think it would make it a better article to split it into two. It is perfectly clear as it is. "Latin verb classes" is not a standard term but one which you have adopted or invented. The standard term used in all the grammar textbooks is "Latin conjugations", which should be retained. And there are already a sufficiently large number of articles about different aspects of Latin grammar. To add more would only cause confusion for users. Kanjuzi (talk) 17:44, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

@Kanjuzi, why do you assume I 'invent' stuff? If I do, I will argue for it in academic papers by presenting evidence, let it be peer-reviewed, not present it here. 'Inflectional classes' is not a term that I invented. 'Classes' of nouns and verbs 'for inflection' are the terms that academic books use for inflectional classes of nouns and verbs. See more: Cambridge inflectional classes, Oxford inflectional classes.

In my opinion, we should separate 1) the list of verb inflection names (see agreement paradigms for an example of how this is done in modern dictionaries) and 2) the list of inflectional class names (1st conjugation, 2nd conjugation...), and 3) I would create a separate page for each inflectional class (5 articles), showing an example vocabulary item in all inflections. This would lead to shorter and better articles. Daniel Couto Vale (talk) 07:18, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

Content structure

@Kanjuzi, the current content structure of this article reflects the fact that the article has multiple topics.

In the first half of the article (1. 'number of conjugations', 2. 'principal parts', 3. 'regular conjugations', 4. 'irregular verbs'), we see a clear structure whereby we the authors aim at explaining two things: 1st how many inflectional classes there are and how to identify the inflectional category of a vocabulary item/dictionary entry (600 words); and 2nd how to inflect an example regular item for each inflectional class (4,047 words). Here I see the possibility of taking the second step of that explanation and moving them to separate articles where this can be better tackled. My suggestion would be to adopt Langenscheidt's name scheme Latin ā-conjugation, Latin ē-conjugation, Latin consonantal conjugation, Latin i-conjugation, Latin ī-conjugation. Alternatively, I would go for Latin 1st conjugation, Latin 2nd conjugation, Latin 3rd conjugation, Latin mixed conjugation, Latin 4th conjugation.

In the second half of the article (5. Non-finite forms, 6. Periphrastic conjugations, 7. Peculiarities), the perspective swaps from vocabulariy items to verbs. We move from an inflection thinking (how items in dictionary differ from words in texts) to a grammatical thinking (how words in text agree or not with other words in text). This is why we move from talking about inflectional classes of verbal items to talking about 1) classes of verbs for agreement (invariable vs person-number vs gender-number - 1,098 words) and 2) classes of verb groups (simple vs periphrastic - 82 words). There is already a page about Latin verb paradigms and another about Latin periphrases, which could be expanded to accommodate new information. I would strongly suggest we consider moving this second half to the two pages I mentioned. Alternatively, we could move them to new pages if the content structure of the ones I mentioned does not accommodate the content well. As for the peculiarities, some of them belong in articles about the forms ('alternative forms' and 'syncopated forms'), others belong in the article about irregular verbs ('irregular future active participles'), others when describing agreement, voice, and tense-mode paradigms ('impersonal verbs', 'deponent verbs' and 'defective verbs'). Daniel Couto Vale (talk) 09:44, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

I really think it would be much better to leave things as they are. Your article Latin verb paradigms merely repeats some of what is already here, with errors (supine genitive, anyone?) and forms such as visurorum which are not actually found in Latin, at least not in this verb. The huge table which you give there doesn't have any meanings so it is difficult for anyone who doesn't already know Latin to understand. Kanjuzi (talk) 12:59, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

@Kanjuzi Hi Kanjuzi, if you want to discuss which forms of supines are attested, we can discuss it on the talk page. I'll search for the papers and articles about supines inflecting like 'fourth-declension nouns' such as rīsus, rīsum, rīsūs, rīsuī, rīsū (laughter) and I'll search for attested uses and their discussion in papers. As for the "vīsūrōrum", finding examples in corpora is much easier: there is ventūrōrum, acceptūrōrum, perītūrōrum, moritūrōrum, futūrōrum...

Have you read what I wrote above about the content structure and why it is not good? Can we focus on this? I would like to reduce the article by splitting it into smaller ones which are more coherent and which can have more specific goals, thereby reducing duplicated content in wikipedia and making information more readily available. If you do not think that moving the content of the second half to the other existing pages is a good idea, I proposed an alternative: "Alternatively, we could move them to new pages if the content structure of the ones I mentioned does not accommodate the content well". Daniel Couto Vale (talk) 15:10, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

It's true there are forms like risus, adventus etc. which look like a supine, but these are verbal nouns and not usually referred to as "supines", even though they have the same form. If you are going to include verbal nouns, your table might also contain words like amator, visio, audientia and so on. But that would make it unwieldy. I don't agree with splitting the article into smaller ones – I have seen what a mess you made when you tried to alter the article on Latin tenses, or indeed when you tried to make alterations to this one. Why don't you find a new topic and write an article about that? There's no shortage of things to write about which are not yet covered on Wikipedia. Kanjuzi (talk) 07:30, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Latin tenses (semantics)

Latin tenses

As I said above, if you want to discuss which forms of the supine are attested, we can discuss it on the talk page of the article that you were complaining about, not here. As I said above, I also can provide you with academic articles about supines, not about fourth declension nouns, which show that supines inflect like fourth declension nouns. I do not intend to include nouns such as the ones you mentioned and I never said I wanted to. For me, it is hard to believe that you are truly misunderstanding what I write so systematically. It feels like bad-faith argumentation even it it is not. But I opt to accept this as just miscommunication.

"I don't agree with splitting the article into smaller ones." -- I know your opinion, but the reason you give is bad.

"I have seen what a mess you made when you tried to alter the article on Latin tenses." -- The current final product of my contribution to Wikipedia on Latin tenses is the article Latin tenses (semantics). Take a look at the content structure of that article to the right. Is it messy? Is it messier than the content structure of the article you wrote about Latin tenses? Compare the two and tell me. Which one is better structured? Be honest. If criticism is to be made, it should be made in such a way as to improve Wikipedia. We should strive for improvement of content, but this is not what happens when you ignore all feedback I gave about the current article to complain about me and my editing capacity, ignoring the final product of the very work you were complaining about. If you find that article messy, please add your remarks on the talk page of that work and improvements you want there. I will gladly include them.

In short, I think you overestimate how well organized this article is. I am writing an alternative article on verb classes and once it is ready for review, I would love your feedback. And despite any misunderstanding thus far, I will truly consider your feedback and include it in the article if it is well grounded. My discussion on this article stops here. Daniel Couto Vale (talk) 21:57, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Why deponents in number of conjugations

@Kanjuzi, I see no informative gain about number of conjugations in your new paragraph about deponents and semi-deponents. It is also strange to talk about this ignoring the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs and other voice auxiliaries such as “agit”, “habet”, “dat” and the like. Should we restrict the scope of the section to the facts about the number of conjugations? 2003:F0:F12:4000:8CCA:5738:939E:A054 (talk) 17:49, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

It is true that the topic of deponent verbs is dealt with further down the article, but a long way further down, so it is useful to mention it here, where the basic information is being summarised. Deponent verbs are after all very important in Latin, and having defined the conjugations as depending on the infinitives -āre, -ēre etc. something ought to be said about deponents, which have different infinitive endings. Whether a verb is transitive or intransitive is irrelevant to its conjugation, except in a very minor way (e.g. iaceo is intransitive, iacio transitive). agit and dat are not auxiliaries. habet is sometimes an auxiliary, but only very rarely. It's not relevant at all to the number of conjugations. So I do think this information is useful. Kanjuzi (talk) 19:03, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

You are probably ignoring the fact that causative auxiliaries belong to transitivity analysis and that deponence is a way how transitivity is realized by voice-case combinations.

As a correction, “agit” is an auxiliary in “audī, quid dē ignibus sentiam, quōs aer trānsversōs agit.” (Listen to what I have to say about the flames that air makes traverse itself.); and “dā” is an auxiliary in “dā bibere”, “datō bibere” (let me/him/her drink, give me/him/her something to drink). This latter construction survived in Spanish and Portuguese “dar de beber”.

However, this is all beyond the point. I think the whole of the deponent topic does not belong in an article about verb inflection. One thing is to know how to recognize the conjugation of a verbal item. Another thing is to learn how to conjugate verbs for each inflectional class. Another thing altogether is to learn that some verbs only have the ō-endings and others only have the or-endings (deponents). After all, this article is about the conjugations, not an instruction of how one should use a paper dictionary. 2A01:598:B1A4:6E3:E10A:6F08:8757:8A74 (talk) 22:08, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

I think you would be very hard put to find a textbook in which agit or da is referred to as an auxiliary verb. I don't agree that deponents do not belong in an article on verb inflection. It seems to me that they are a very important part of the subject. Kanjuzi (talk) 07:37, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

I can provide you with a reference to a chapter on causatives if you want. It compares Latin translations with originals in other languages. It is quite interesting.

As for the inflections, the whole problem here is that the traditional grammar books mix two notions: the inflections themselves and the way they oppose each other to construe meaning (grammatical features). I constructed a table for lexical vs inflectional vs grammatical features in a sandbox article about User:Daniel Couto Vale/sandbox/Latin verb classes which you might enjoy. I am seriously thinking about removing it from the article and moving it to an article about voice and case. The same kind of mapping is necessary for tense since meminī, memineram, meminerō represent present, past, future events. And it is also necessary for mode since estō and sīs are the common imperative verbs for sum, esse. And so it goes on and on. One concern should be to learn the inflections. Another concern should be to learn classes of vocabulary items for the ascription of roles to event participants (deponent, semi-deponent, etc.). Daniel Couto Vale (talk) 23:45, 30 May 2023 (UTC)