Indo-Europeanists are well aware of the fact that the most widespread word for proving the kinship of IE languages is the numeral three which sounds practically the same in dozens of languages of the family. Numerals are very stable in the language: they appeared very early, probably, even before the declension of nouns was developed. Numerals themselves were never declined in ancient times (we mean here only cardinal numerals), and only on the later stages of the Indo-European language development some of them were assimilated by adjectives. The rest of the cardinal numerals remained simple unchangeable words used only for counting. Their roots obviously had some exact meaning which was forgotten rather early: today we can hardly reconstruct some of them. The Proto-Indo-European numerals and the analysis of the Indo-European system of count are given in the essay Numbers, Numerals and Count in Indo-European. As for ordinal, adverbial and other kinds of numerals, they appeared later and are actually just derivatives from the cardinal ones.
Numerals were preserved in the majority of the languaes of the family due to their simple phonetic value (they are all very short), they are stable and seldom borrowed from other languages (though there is a question of borrowing the numeral seven). Latin also keeps the Indo-European look of the numerals.
Here are the cardinal numerals of the Latin language with some comments following:
1 unus
2 duo
3 tres
4 quattuor
5 quínque
6 sex
7 septem
8 octó
9 novem
10 decem
11 undecim
12 duodecim
13 tridecim
14 quattuordecim
15 quindecim
16 sedecim
17 septendecim
18 duodeviginti
19 undeviginti
20 vígintí
21 viginti unus
30 triginta
40 quadraginta
100 centum
200 ducenti
1000 mille
2000 duo milia
Unus was acting in the language as a pronominal adjective. Actually in the Proto-Indo-European language it meant 'single', 'the only' and that is why was always closer to adjectives. This one is declined like a 1-2nd declension adjective, with feminine una and neuter unum.
Duo (from IE *duwo) was originally declined only in dual number, which is natural. As Latin had no dual number, the system of its declension looked like that:
N duo, fem. duae, neut. duo
G duórum, fem. duárum
D, Ab duóbus, fem. duábus
Ac duós, fem. duás, neut.
duo
Tres resembles the nominative plural of the 3rd declension nouns ending in -es. It was plural and was declined the following way:
N, Ac trés, neut. tria
G trium
D, Ab tribus
Quattuor (from Italic *quotvores from IE *kwetwores) did not have a declension, though in some Indo-European languages there is some. Phonetically interesting is the double t in the middle derived from the single t in Proto-Indo-European. According to this process, some linguists consider that the consonant of the syllable was always lengthened before a sonant (r, l, n, m, w, y). The same goes for the Greek hippos derived from IE *ekwos.
Quinque is an example of the syllabic assimilation which we described in the Phonetics section. Its ancestor is IE *penkwe, but the initial p was assimilated by the middle kw.
Octó is a dual form, one of the relics of the dual number in the language. It was dual in Proto-Indo-European as well, and this makes linguists suppose it used to denote the pair of something (furrows, for example).
Duodeviginti and undeviginti literally mean 'two from twenty' and 'one from twenty' respectively. The argument about the system of counting in Indo-European languages generates several questions, and one of them is the role of 'twenty' in counting: it seems to have been rather important, even more important than that of 'ten'. The same situation is preserved in modern Celtic languages (Irish daichead means 'two twenties', 'fourty'): remember that Celtic and Italic languages are rather close to each other.
Vígintí originally is a combination: *dwi + *dkm-ti 'two + ten'.
Cardinal numerals in Latin are usually used with the nominative case
of nouns: una puella 'one girl', duo pueri
'two boys', viginti viri 'twenty men'.
The majority of ordinal numerals are formed with the suffix *-to-. The first two of them have nothing in common with the respective cardinal ones: they are made suppletively, as in all other Indo-European dialects. Numerals from 7th to 10th have no suffix at all. All ordinal numerals, do not forget, are declined like ordinary adjectives of the 1st-2nd declension.
1 primus
2 secundus
3 tertius
4 quartus
5 quintus
6 sextus
7 septimus
8 octavus
9 nonus
10 decimus
Primus is hardly a derivative of the Proto-Indo-European *pr-mo- 'first'. But although this is one of the theories, another claims it derives from *prismos which can, however, be related somehow to *pr-mo-.
Secundus is again a suppletive stem, nothing in common
with duo 'two'. The word for 'second' could also be alter
which literally means 'the other'. Remember that in Old English, for example,
the word óþer meant 'second' as well as'other'.
This is common for all Indo-European tongues.
Other kinds of words denoting numbers were the distributive and the adverbial numerals. Distributive are used when counting people, for example, in the ranks. It is rather hard to explain in English (not in Russian) so we include the example:
1 singulí (-ae, -a)
2 biní (-ae, -a) < *dui-ní
3 terní (-ae, -a)
4 quaterní
5 quiní
6 sení
7 septéní
8 octóní
9 novéní
10 dení
20 vicéní
100 centéní
200 ducéní
900 nongéní
1000 singula milia
Stant bini - They are standing by couples.
Do eis centenos denarios - I give [each of] them a hundred
coins (here in accusative plural)
You see that the distributive numerals are declined like plural nouns of the 1-2 declension. That is why -ae and -a given in brackets mean feminine and neuter forms.
The adverbial numerals are well translated into English as 'once', 'twice', etc. Here they are:
1 semel
2 bis
3 ter
4 quater
5 quinquiés
6 sexiés
7 septiés
8 octiés
9 noviés
10 deciés
20 viciés
100 centiés
200 ducentiés
900 nongentiés
1000 miliés
The word semel derives from the stem *sem- which meant 'the only' in Indo-European.
Note that both the distributive and the adverbial numerals for 'two' use the initial b- instead of d- in duo. This is a common Italic rule: the combination *dv- turned to b- everywhere at the beginning of the word.
I hope you find Latin numerals interesting. To my mind, the more complicated
a language is, the more it is interesting to study. I don't mean a complicated
script as in Hindi, nor the tonal pronunciation as in Chinese. But the
grammatical structure can be of any interest only if it includes, for example,
seven noun cases, or four kinds of numerals, or a thousand of endings for
verbal forms. Take up Sanskrit, Old Church Slavonic or Greek, and you will
discover the real beauty...
The adverb is one of the newest improvements of the Indo-European speech. In Proto-Indo-European, there was no such part of speech, and the question 'how?' was replied to using the indirect forms of adjectives. Later certain case forms of adjectives and (rarer) nouns became frozen and unchangeable, used only together with verbs. This is how adverbs appeared: the period of their formation in the Indo-European family lies somewhere between late Proto-Indo-European and early proto-dialects.
In Latin, the majority of adverbs are derivatives from adjectives. Most of them derive from the ablative singular forms of the respective adjectives: the endings used to be *-éd / -ód, after -d was dropped, adjectival averbs in Latin ended in long -é. So in order to make an adverb you should take an adjective stem and add an -é, the same way as you add -ly in English (easy - easily):
latus - laté 'widely'
liber - liberé 'freely'
pulcher - pulchré 'in a beautiful way'
minimus - minimé 'the least'
These are derivatives from the 1-2 declension adjectives (those in -us / -um / -a). Adjectives of the 3rd declension form their adverbs with the suffix -ter / -iter:
acer - acriter 'sharply'
fortis - fortiter 'strongly'
sapiens - sapienter 'in a clever way'
Another major group of adverbs includes those which derived from pronouns or nouns, and are often in fact stiff case forms. Many of them existed already in Proto-Indo-European, which is verified by the presence of certain adverbs in several branches. For example, the adverb home (as in going home or staying at home) is found everywhere as a locative and dative case of the noun house: Russian domoj, doma, Latin domum, domí, Greek oikade (home), oikoi (at home), oikothen (from home). The same model acts with the word today which was used in Proto-Indo-European as the combination of the pronoun this in dative or locative case with the noun day in the same case form. Sometimes if even the locative case completely disappears in the language, the adverb is preserved: Gothic himma daga, Old High German hiu-tu, Lithuanian šiandien.
The group of stiff adverbs, or independent adverbs, include the following widespread ones:
fere 'almost'
semper 'always'
ubi 'where'
Adverbs form their comparative degree the same way as neuter adjectives,
with the suffix -ius: altius 'higher', felicius
'happier'. The superlative degree is made of the respective form of adjectives
with the adverbial -é: fortissime
'higher than anything'.
The reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language was characterized by an extremely complex verbal system. The verb in classical IE languages possesses about a hundred forms, each having its usage in the language, each having its inflection. It looks as if there were no analytic verbal forms in Proto-Indo-European, like English have been, they started emerging later, in all branches of the family.
The system of the verb, as linguists often noticed, has interesting parallels with that of the noun, which makes the whole structure of the language quite organic. In general, the internal psychology of the Indo-European language system is not yet completely revealed, but obviously the language was considered as the whole. For example, the comparative form of adjectives definitely had something in common with the dual number of nouns. The perfect form of the verb was connected with the neuter gender - it is hard to prove basing on the late IE languages but clearly seen in Homeric Greek or Vedic Aryan. Both the verb and the noun use the category of the number. This all represents the system of how ancient Indo-Europeans understood the world and reflected their perception in the language. Today we can hardly reconstruct the whole pyramid of the original Indo-European psychology, but at least the language gives us a chance to try.
The Latin verb of the classical period (from the 1st century BC to the 3rd century AD) did not yet have time to drop original Indo-European forms. The following grammatical categories were in use in the language: the number, the person, the tense, the mood, and the voice. Seems simple...
Moreover, linguists divided all regular Latin verbs into four types of conjugation, depending on the final vowel of their stem. Each type, naturally, is conjugated in its own way, some of them also have certain varieties.
The 1st conjugation stem ends in -á-, i.e. long a, with only one exception, the verb dare has its a quite short. This verb is always an exception in Indo-European tongue, this is why it is easy to memorize. Books usually use the verb ornare 'to decorate' as the demonstration for the 1st conjugation. Its present (or infect, as it is also called) stem is orná-. The second conjugation stem has the final -é-, note that it is always long, and it is not a thematic vowel at all: monere 'to show', the stem moné-. The fourth conjugation type has its stem ending in a long -í- (audire 'the listen', stem audí-) - it is represented mainly by verbs formed from the respective nouns (e.g. audire from auris 'an ear', finire from finis 'the end').
The hardest one is the third conjugation because it has actually two types: the stem can end in -e- or in -i-, both short vowels. The -e- is a mere thematic vowel which can disappear or mutate. Three examples: mittere 'to send', the present stem mitte-, statuere 'to set', stem statue-, capere 'to seize' with the stem capi- (here -i- turns into -e- before an -r- which is habitual).
The infinitive can hardly give the whole image of the verb as it is seen in the last example above. That is why Latin linguists established the four principal forms of the verb which are always given in dictionaries and which characterize the verb in all its peculiarities. Here are they:
1. The 1st person singular of the Present tense indicative mood. It
is formed easily using the present stem with the ending -ó.
So for all four conjugations this form looks like this: ornó
'I decorate' (1), monéó 'I show' (2), mittó
'I
send' (3a), capió 'I seize', audíó
'I listen' (4).
2. The 1st person singular of the Perfect tense indicative mood. This
one always end in -í (we will discuss the perfect
endings later in more detail): ornavi, monui, misi, audivi
'I have decorated, I have sent, etc.' After dropping the ending -í
we get the Perfect stem: ornav-, monu-, mis-, audiv- which
will later be useful for forming other tenses.
3. The Supine - a verbal noun which ends in -um everywhere.
Without this suffix, we get the supine stem ornat-, monit-, miss-,
audit-. Again - a lot of forms use this stem, that is why it is
rather important.
4. The last one is the infinitive itself - ornare, monere, mittere,
audire, which is formed using the present stem with the suffix
-re.
In fact this -re is a result of the consonant mutation which
we observed above in the Phonetics section, it is called rhotacism: -r-
resulted from -s- between vowels. The only verb which preserved
it was the irregular verb esse 'to be'.
So these are all four principal forms basing on which you can generate all tenses, voices and moods which are described below.
Now let us turn to the conjugation of verbs. The simplest type of it
is the infect tenses, those with the imperfective meaning. The Present,
the Imperfect, the Future I are those tenses. They have common in using
the infect stem with practically the same endings, with slight differences.
Here is the table of the present tense endings followed by examples:
| Active voice | Passive voice | |
| 1st pers. sg. | -ó | -or |
| 2nd pers. sg. | -s < *-es | -ris |
| 3rd pers. sg. | -t < *-et | -tur < *-tor |
| 1st pers. pl. | -mus < *-mos | -mur < *-mor |
| 2nd pers. pl. | -tis < *-tes | -miní < *-menoi |
| 3rd pers. pl. | -nt | -ntur < *-ntor |
The above endings, remember, are only for the Present tense. For example, we take all four conjugation type verbs:
ornare 'to decorate' (1st congugation):
orno 'I decorate'
ornas 'you decorate'
ornat 'he decorates'
... ornant 'they decorate'
ornor 'I am decorated'
ornaris 'you are decorated'
... ornantur 'they are decorated'
monere 'to show' (2nd conjugation):
moneo 'I show'
mones 'you show'
... moneor 'I am shown'
... monentur 'they are shown'
mittere 'to send' (3rd conjugation):
mitto 'I send'
mittes 'you send'
... mittor 'I am sent'
... mittuntur 'they are sent' *
capere 'to seize' (3rd conjugation):
capio 'I seize'
capis 'you send'
... capior 'I am seized'
... capiuntur 'they are seized' *
audire 'to listen' (4th conjugation):
audio 'I listen'
audis 'you listen'
... audiuntur 'they are listened to' *
* Note that the 3rd person plural forms in the 3rd and the 4th conjugations include the thematic vowel -u- before the ending.
The most interesting of all the present endings is -miní which originally was not personal, though it is an ancient Indo-European form. It is witnessed in Greek, even in the Mycenaean period, in passive participles: -menos. A similar participle form was also found in Tocharic and Indic languages.
The -r which is present in all passive voice forms is also originally Indo-European, and was used in the Medium voice, which fortunately disappeared in Italic tongues, leaving only this element in the passive. The -r was long subject to discussions and arguments in the Indo-European linguistic community, its common Indo-European origins seemed rather doubtful, as only two relative groups, Celtic and Italic, use it. But later, when Tochariand and Anatolian languages were discovered and analyzed, it appeared that not only the Celto-Italic subbranch had this medium voice element, and that it was not an innovation. Tocharian mediopassive endings are practically identical to those of Latin.
The next tense also regarded as an infect one, is called the Imperfect. It denotes the action which took place in the past and was over in the past too. In English, the Past Indefinite is the direct parallel, in French L'Imparfait is the direct descendant. The Imperfect tense was built using the present stem with the suffix -bá- / -ébá- and the present endings. The only ending which differs from the table above is the 1st person singular -m, derived from Indo-European secondary inflections. Here is the sample:
ornabam 'I decorated' (monebam 'I showed',
mittebam
'I sent', audiebant 'I heard')
ornabas 'you decorated'
... ornabantur 'they were decorated' (monebantur,
mittebantur, audiebantur)
The suffix -ba-, as the majority of linguists state, originates from the Proto-Indo-European verb *bhú- 'to be' plus suffix -á-: so the Imperfect in Latin and in other Italic tongues was actually a combination of two verb stems - the basic stem and the auxiliary verb 'to be'. The same pattern is valid in Celtic languages: in Old Irish the future tense and the conditional mood are formed with the suffix -f-, which also derived from *bhú-.
For French speakers it is interesting to learn the way how the Latin
Imperfect forms led to the formation of L'Imparfait. Let us take the verb
cantare
'to sing', French chanter:
Latin cantabat 'he sang' > Popular Latin cantavat
> Old French chantoet > Middle French chantoit
> French chantait 'he sang'.
The Future I tense is called Future Indefinite in English, but Latin Future I forms can be translated into English also using the Continuous tense because there was no continuous forms in Latin at all. Its formation has two varieties: one for the 1-2 conjugations, and one for 3-4 conjugations.
The 1-2nd conjugation future is formed also using the derivative of the Indo-European root *bhú- as a suffix, the Future I is formed by the present stem + -b- + present endings. The ending can be preceeded by the thematic vowel, the same as in the present tense. Three vowels can be thematic here, e, i, and u, and in order not to mix them, we are giving the full conjugation of the verb ornare in the Future I tense.
ornabo 'I will decorate'
ornabis 'you will decorate'
ornabit 'he will decorate'
ornabimus 'we will decorate'
ornabitis 'you will decorate'
ornabunt 'they will decorate'
ornabor 'I will be decorated'
ornaberis 'you'
ornabitur 'he'
ornabimur 'we'
ornabiminí 'you'
ornabuntur 'they'
For some historical reasons, the Future I of the last two conjugations is formed in a completely different way. The infect stem is unified with the suffix -á- / -é-, and the endings are those of the Imperfect; see the forms:
mittam 'I will send', capiam 'I will seize',
audiam
'I will listen'
mittes 'you', capies, audies
mittet 'he, she'
mittemus 'we'
mittetis 'you'
mittent 'they'
mittar 'I will be sent', capiar, audiar
mitteris 'you', capieris, audieris
mittetur 'he, she'
mittemur 'we'
mittemini 'you'
mittentur 'they'
To be frank I need to say that sometimes in Archaic
Latin all types of conjugation could have -b- in the
Future I tense. Maybe this can be explained by lack of education of ancient
authors; in Classical Latin Cicero and Caesar did not make such "mistakes".
Now let us turn to the other part of the Latin tenses, the Perfect tenses the conjugation and the usage of which differed a lot from those we already described above. In general, Latin did like many tenses - just the same as Modern English. The difference is that English just takes the simple verb have, will or be and constructs its numerous tenses with thehelp of them. Latin did not: it used only personal inflections for that, and that is much more difficult to learn, because there is no logic in the endings, just etymology.
The Proto-Indo-European language did not have so many tenses. There was maybe a Future form (not quite a tense, but a construction), a Perfect, the Aorist and the Imperfect in the past, and several moods - the optative and obviously the conjunctive. Complex forms were not used, such as the Plusquamperfect or the Future Perfect. The number of verbal forms was constantly growing in the Proto-Indo-European epoch and later, during the dialectal diffusion. Then, according to the "sinusoid law" (see Cases in Indo-European Languages), this number began to decline. The optimal number of verb tenses, as other language families show, is two: one for the past, and one for the present-future. But will that be Indo-European?
The perfect stem included several different types, each with its own suffix. Linguists tried to count them and got six types. It is easier to comprehend them in the list, to my mind:
1. The perfect stem with -v- is a characteristic feature
of the fourth and the first conjugations, e.g. ornavi 'I
have decorated', audivi 'I have listened' where -i
is the 1st person singular ending, see below.
2. The suffix -u- is in fact a variety of the -v-
one, as these two letters were written in the same way in Latin (see Latin
Alphabet). But its vowel sound existed as the perfect suffix for the
second conjugation verbs:
monui 'I have shown'.
3. The third conjugation is again the most complicated. Its perfect
stem is usually formed with the element -s- which derives
from the Indo-European sigmatic aorist, another past tense. The consonants
staying before the -s- often mutate according to the rules
of assimilation (see Phonetics): mittere
- misi 'I have sent', scribere - scripsi 'I have
written', dicere - dixi 'I have said' (from *dicsi).
4. The fourth type is the lengthening of the root vowel, without any
suffix. It can be seen in all conjugations, and usually in widely used
verbs: video - vísi 'I have seen" (2nd conjugation),
legere
- légi 'I have read' (3rd conjugation), venire - véni
'I have come' (4th conj.).
A variety: if the root vowel is a, its lengthening ometimes
can cause -é-, which is a reflection of the ancient
Indo-European ablaut in the root: agere - égi 'I have
led', capere - cépi 'I have seized'. Put the ending
-i
aside and you get the perfect stem.
5. Some Latin verbs to which I am very grateful preserved the archaic
reduplication method of building the perfect stem. According to the Indo-European
rules, the reduplication in the perfect was made of the initial consonant
plus the vowel -e-, cf. Greek grapho 'I write'
- gegrapha 'I have written'. In Latin the root vowel influenced
greatly the reduplication vowel: dare - dedi 'I have given',
mordere
- momordi 'I have bit', currere - cucurri 'I have
run'. These verbs are not numerous. Interesting that they include the verb
to
give, which in many IE languages preserved the reduplication form even
in the Present. Compare the following:
Greek dó- 'to give', didómi
'I give'
Lithuanian duoti 'to give', duodu 'I give'
Russian dat' 'to give', dadim 'we will
give'
Sanskrit dá- 'to give', dadami 'I
give'
6. The last (and I think the least) of the perfect stem types is the same as the Present stem: statuere - statui 'I have established' (both the present and the perfect stems are statu-), vertere - verti 'I have twisted'.
Now we will see the constructions which used the perfect stem. One of
them is the Perfect itself, which is formed with its psecific endings:
|
|
|
|
| 1 pers. | -í < -ei < *-ai | -imus < *-emos |
| 2 pers. | -isti < -istei < *-istai | -istis |
| 3 pers. | -it < *-ed < *-t | -erunt < *-isont |
There were two principal meanings of the Perfect. It could mean the action in the past without reference to how long it lasted, just the fact. Here it correlates with the English Past Indefinite tense: Veni, vidi, vici - 'I came, I saw, I won'. The meaning here does not quite seem perfective, but in Latin it was. Here is another example which can be translated into Enlgish only with the Indefinite tense: Ego semper illum appellavi inimicum meum 'I always called him my enemy'.
But the original meaning of the Perfect is the state in the present
as a result of the past action: consuevi 'I am used to it',
meaning 'It became habitual in the past and is still a habit of mine';
sibi
persuavit 'he is persuaded' meaning 'he pursuaded himself in the
past and now is sure at last'.
Other perfect forms of the Latin language include the Plusquamperfect, corresponding to the English Past Perfect, and the Future II, practically the same as the English Future Perfect.
The Plusquamperfect (literally translated as more than Perfect) indicates the past action which was over before another past action. It was used rather rarely, but still it is useful to know that it is generated by the Perfect stem with the suffix -erá- and the imperfect endings. So the Plusquamperfect form of ornare will be ornav-era-m 'I had decorated'.
The Future II indicates the future action which will take palce before another future action. It is built with the help of the Perfect stem, the suffix -er-, -eri- and the present endings: ornav-er-ó 'I will have decorated', ornav-eri-s 'you will have decorated'.
Both the tenses above include the suffix -er-. This element is etymologically explained as the derivative from the Indo-European sigmatic aorist - the original form is *-is-; the particle -á- which appears in the Latin Plusquamperfect is the indicator of the past tense. The same suffix -is- was preserved in the perfect endings -isti, -istis, -erunt < *-isont, it denoted the perfective meaning in general. Other languages of the Italic group also use this kind of construction of the perfect tenses - the archaic Oscan language has -us-, -uz- as the suffix of the Future II, which in more progressive Umbrian turned to -ur- according to rhotacism.
We cannot avoid the passive voice. In English (and a lot of other modern Indo-European tongues) it is simple to make it: take the past participle and a form of the verb to be. Fortunately, this was the same in Latin as well. Here are the Perfect tenses in the passive:
1. The Perfect: take the past passive participle and
the present forms of the verb esse 'to
be'. We did not touch either of them, so see them below if you are
eager to play with the passive voice. The Perfect passive is translated
into English as the Past Indefinite passive.
Examples: ornatus sum 'I was decorated', auditus
est 'he was listened to', moniti sumus 'we were shown'
2. The Plusquamperfect is made of the past passive participle and the
past
forms of the verb esse.
Examples: ornatus eram 'I had been decorated', auditi
erant 'they had been listened to'.
3. The Future II has the past passive participle and the future
tense of the verb esse.
Examples: ornatus ero 'I will have been decorated', moniti
erimus 'we will have been shown'.
As we mentioned before, Latin had three moods: the indicative, which was described above in all tenses; the imperative; and the conjunctive mood. We will touch the rest of them now.
We are not quite sure the conjunctive mood existed in the Proto-Indo-European language. This Italic form comes from several sources, including the probable Indo-European conjunctive with *-e- / -o- and the optative mood with *-ye-. Moreover, there is an original Italic conjunctive with -a-, with an uncertain origin.
Take the present (infect) stem, add the suffix -a- and afterwards the Imperfect endings, and you have the Conjunctive mood in the present tense. The first conjugation, where the stem ends in -a-, drops it and replaces this vowel by é: ornem 'I would decorate', moneam 'I would show', mittar 'I would be sent'.
Those of you who are the most attentive noticed the same form moneam in both the Future I tense and in the Present of the conjunctive mood. This coincidence is explained by the fact that the Future I is actually an ancient conjunctive mood which originally had two varieties in Latin, with -a- and with -e-. Later, when the form with -e- began to mark the future tense, the 1st person singular still preserved its original conjunctive ending.
More of the conjunctive types:
a) the Imperfect of the conjunctive mood is also simple: the infect
stem, the suffix -re-, the imperfect endings. So you just
made the infinitive and add the imperfect endings to it: orna-re-m
'I would have been decorating', mone-re-m 'I would have been
showing'.
b) the Perfect: the perfect stem, the suffix -eri-, the
imperfect
endings: ornav-eri-m 'I would have decorated'.
The usage of the conjunctive mood in Latin and in English differs considerably. In ancient languages the conjunctive forms were much more frequent in the speech than in modern tongues. Moreover, in Latin the optative mood coincided with it, giving additional meanings to the conjunctives. Here is the basic syntax of the mood:
1. Denoting appeal: Amemus patriam! 'Let us love our motherland!'
(almost imperative in meaning, isn't it?)
2. Denoting incentive: Videant consules 'Let the consuls
see'
3. Denoting prohibition (with the negative particle): Ne dicas
'You'd better not say [it]'
4. Denoting wish: Utinam veniat 'O, if he could come!'
5. Denoting concession: Sit hoc verum 'Even if it's true'
6. Denoting probability in the future: quis neget 'who
would deny?'
7. Denoting perplexity or doubt: quid agam 'what should
I do?'
Practically each of the meanings above finds cognates in other Indo-European
branches, either in optative or in conjunctive.
The imperative mood, one of the most archaic forms of the Indo-European verb, is everywhere build with the pure infect stem. Linguists believe the 2nd person singular of the imperative mood was among the first verbal forms that appeared in the speech, even before the inflections emerged. In Latin the construction remained the same: orná! 'decorate!', moné! 'show!', mitte! 'send!', audí! 'listen!'. Those stems of the 3b conjugation ending in -i have it replaced by -e: cape! 'seize!'. Several widely used verbs drop the final vowel at all: dic! 'say!', fac! 'do!', duc! 'lead!'
The 2nd person plural adds the ending -te: ornate! 'decorate, you two!'
If you would like to form the negative, the verbal form noli plus the infinitive is used: noli monere 'do not show!', nolite audire 'do not listen!'.
In the Archaic Latin language, as well as in other Italic tongues, the
imperative mood also acted in the future tense. In the Classical epoch
its usage was limited by the language of lawyers and official agreements,
like English shall do. This was common for late Proto-Indo-European
and was preserved in Greek, Sanskrit, Celtic. The Latin endings were -tó
for the 2nd person singular and -tóte for the 2nd
person plural, respectively going back to *-tód and
*-tódte:
ornató!
'decorate in the future!', auditóte! 'listen in the
future!'. The forms are believed to have emerged from the ablative case
of the demonstarive pronouns.
I would like to finish the survey of the Latin verb by the description of irregular verbs. When in school, we swore at English irregular verbs and their infamous three forms: drive - drove - driven still make me shiver. Only much later I understood that those three forms were not the most terrible thing on earth - Latin irregular forms are much more numerous and really "irregular".
At all there are six irregular verbs in Latin, here are there principal forms:
sum, fui, futum, esse 'to be' (suppletive forms
from two Indo-European verbs *es- and *bhú-)
edo, edi, esum, edere 'to eat'
fero, tuli, latum, ferre 'to carry' (suppletive
forms from two IE stems: *bher- and *tol-)
volo / nolo / malo, volui, -, velle 'to will, to
wish'
eo, ii, itum, ire 'to go, to walk'
fio, factus sum, fieri 'to become'
We will show their conjugation in the Present tense:
1st sg.: sum, edo, fero, volo, eo, fio
2nd sg. es, edis, fers, vis, is, fis
3rd sg. est, edit, fert, vult, it, fit
1st pl. sumus, edimus, ferimus, volumu, imus, -
2nd pl. estis, editis, fertis, vultis, itis, -
3rd pl. sunt, edunt, ferunt, volunt, eunt, fiunt
Irregular verbs exist in every Indo-European language. Moreover, in most cases they are the same everywhere - only the most widespread ones become irregular or take suppletive stems. Naturally, these verbs appeared in the language long before any other verbs, so we can suppose that in early Proto-Indo-European there were not conjugation types, no verb classes, and each verb was conjugated in its own way. While the number of verbs was increasing people began to forget how each of them was conjugated, so analogies appeared, and that led to the division of verbs into several major classes which Latin calls conjugation types.
The verb in Latin was quite productive, and several important derivatives
which are really worth studying are described in the next section below.
Verbal prefixes
a-, ab- amotion (from, out of) ab-ducere
'to lead away, to lead out'
ad- approaching (closer)
ad-movere 'to make closer'
co- collecting (together)
co-gere 'to gather people' (*co-agere)
con- collecting (with, together with) col-lidere
'to collide'
de- amotion (down from) de-fendere
'to repel, to defend'
di-, dis- dividing
di-mittere 'to distribute'
e-, ex- exiting, withdrawing (from, out of) ex-ire
'to exit'
in- moving inside (in, into)
in-ferre
'to bring in'
ob- opposing (counter-, anti-) ob-state
'to oppose'
per- finalizing
per-fringere 'to break'
pro- moving forward (forward, ahead) pro-videre
'to foresee'
prae- preceding (before, in front of) prae-esse
'to head'
re-, red- redoing (again, back) re-cedere
'to retreat'
se-, sed- amotion (from, apart) se-jungere
'to
part'
sub- coming down (down, under) sub-venire
'to help, to send help'
tra-, trans- crossing (across, over) tra-dere
'to trade, to hand' (*tra-dáre)
Practically all of them find cognates in relative Indo-European languages. The only exception is re- which is not Indo-European and may be a borrowing from aboriginal languages of the Apennine peninsula.
(To be continued.)