Getting started on Classical Latin

4.2.4 Verbs

Verbs are the most important words of all, as is suggested by the fact that the verb in both English and Latin is named after the Latin word uerbum, word! Without a verb, a sentence cannot be a proper sentence, or a clause a proper clause. A one-word sentence consists of a verb only, for example, Run!

The ending of a Latin verb shows who the doer of the action of the verb is (which is why there is usually no need of a pronoun to show this). Below are the present tense person endings of almost every Latin verb:

Person Singular Plural
1st -o (= I) -mus (= we)
2nd -s (= you) -tis (= you)
3rd -t (= he/she/it) -nt (= they)

The part of the verb to which the person ending is added is called the stem. Thus, the stem ama- plus -nt produces amant, meaning they love.

As well as indicating an action and the doer of the action, a verb usually tells us when the action happens: I'm eating, for example, tells us of something happening at the present moment, whereas I ate indicates something that happened in the past. This kind of difference is known as the ‘tense’ of the verb. In English, this is often indicated by using another verb to help out the meaning, for example I will eat. This extra verb is sometimes referred to as an auxiliary verb, from Latin auxilium, meaning help. In Latin, on the other hand, a change of person ending, and sometimes a change of stem, indicates a change in the tense.

The main tenses are given below.

Tense Example
Present I eat (simple present)
I am eating (present continuous)
I do eat (emphatic)
Future I shall/will eat
I am going to eat, I am eating [my birthday cake tomorrow]
Imperfect I was eating (description in the past)
I used to eat (repeated action)
I kept on eating
I began to eat
I ate (over a long period of time)

As well as implying that an action was going on for some time, the imperfect (from Latin imperfectum, incomplete) has a sense of incompleteness about it: the action has not been definitely finished.

Tense Example
Perfect I have eaten (present perfect)
I ate (past simple, as a completed action)
Pluperfect I had eaten (further back in the past than the perfect)
Future perfect I will/shall have eaten

Latin has only the above five (or six) tenses. As you can see, there is by no means the variety of ways of describing actions in Latin that there is in English!

Activity 6

Identify the person and tense of following verbs.

Example Person and tense
We went __________________
You are going to speak __________________
They have arrived __________________
We used to know __________________
You are flying __________________
I was trying __________________
He will jump __________________
She fell __________________

Answer

Example Person and tense
We went 1st person plural, Latin perfect tense
You are going to speak 2nd person, future tense
They have arrived 3rd person plural, perfect tense
We used to know 1st person plural, imperfect tense
You are flying 2nd person, present tense
I was trying 1st person singular, imperfect tense
He will jump 3rd person singular, future tense
She fell 3rd person singular, Latin perfect tense

Activity 7

The following extract from the parable of the Prodigal Son in the New Testament contains several verbs. Identify them and say which tense each is in.

And when he had spent everything, a great famine arose in that country, and he began to be in want. So he went and joined himself to one of the citizens of that country [...] no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father's hired servants have bread enough and to spare, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you…’

(Luke 15: 14–18)

Answer

Verbs Tense
had spent pluperfect tense
arose Latin perfect tense
began Latin perfect tense
[to be infinitive in present tense]
went Latin perfect tense
joined Latin perfect tense
gave Latin imperfect tense
came Latin perfect tense
said Latin perfect tense
have present tense
[to spare infinitive in present tense]
perish present tense
will arise future tense
(will) go future tense
will say future tense
have sinned perfect tense