6 A-Verbs (First Conjugation)
“Today you are going to learn how to use some common verbs besides sum. Write these in your book. Leave a big space between the Latin and the English – enough space to fit two more words – so we can fill it in later. Always write the long marks, because they are part of the spelling of each word:”
A-Verbs
amō, am-āreI love, to love
cōgitō, cōgit-āreI think, to think; I plan, to plan
dō, d-areI give, to give
mūtō, mūt-āreI change, to change
parō, par-āreI prepare, to prepare; I acquire, to acquire
rogō, rog-āreI ask; to ask
servō, serv-āreI save, to save; I preserve, to preserve “Note: this does not mean ‘to serve’!”
spērō, spēr-āreI hope, to hope
vocō, voc-āreI call, to call
“The first form is the 1st person, singular, present tense form: amō, I love. The second form is the Infinitive: amāre, to love. An infinitive is a verb form with no personal ending. The infinitive form in English is always ‘to’ plus the verb. Many Latin words have more than one English translation, and when that is the case, I have given you two common ones.”
“All of these verbs have an infinitive form that ends with –ĀRE. Verbs like this belong to a family I call A-Verbs because they typically contain the letter a. Some people call this verb family the First Conjugation. There are other verb families, but today we will focus on this one.”
“Just like sum, these verbs have different forms for each person, number, and tense. Each verb form is made up of two parts: a Stem, which comes first, and an Ending.”
How do you figure out what the stem is? I asked.
“Good question. THE STEM OF AN A-VERB IS THE INFINITIVE FORM WITHOUT
THE LAST THREE LETTERS, –ĀRE. For the verbs you wrote down, I will show you the stems of the first three, and you tell me the rest:”
InfinitiveStem
amāream-
cōgitārecōgit-
dared-
mūtāre (1) parāre rogāre servāre spērāre vocāre
“To these stems you add a string of letters, an Ending, which indicates the person, the number, and the tense of the verb. These are the six endings for the Present Tense of A-Verbs:”
A-Verb Present Tense Endings (B)
-ō-ā-muscōgit-ōcōgit-āmus
-ā-s-ā-tiscōgit-āscōgit-ātis
-a-t-a-ntcōgit-atcōgit-ant
I thinkwe think
you thinkyou all think
he she it thinksthey think
“Do you see the personal endings?” Yes, there’s ō, and s, t, mus, tis, nt.
“So, except for the first singular, ō, the endings are spelled ā, following by the personal endings. The ā before t and nt loses its long mark.”
But what happened to the Latin pronouns?
“One important feature of Latin is its Unexpressed Subjects. In English there is a subject spoken or written for every verb. But Latin sentences often let the verb ending alone tell you the subject
– the subject pronoun (ego, tū, is, ea, id, etc.) is not expressed. When you translate such a sentence into English, you have to use the correct pronoun.”
Parō.I prepare.
Sperātis.You all hope.
“If the subject is expressed in the Latin sentence, then you do not need to supply a pronoun in English:”
Menaechmus amat.Menaechmus loves.
“If the verb is 3rd Person Singular, you should write ‘he / she / it’, unless you know from the sentences you are reading what gender the subject is.”
Cōgitat(He / she / it) thinks. Menaechmus amat. Dat.Menaechmus loves. He gives.
“THE RULE FOR TODAY IS: I. READ ALOUD, II. MARK SUBJECT AND PREDICATE, PLUS THE PERSON, NUMBER, AND TENSE OF EACH VERB, III. TRANSLATE EACH WORD, PUTTING THEM IN THE APPROPRIATE ENGLISH WORD ORDER. PUT II. AND III. IN YOUR NOTEBOOK, LIKE SO:”
- “Vōs bene parātis.”
- Vōs (subj.) bene parātis (2nd plural, pres.).
- You all well prepare >>> You all prepare well.
Adulescēns sum. Bona erās. Geminī erunt. (1)
Bene dāmus. Sīc cōgitō. (2)
Bonus est, nisi nōn spērat. (3)
“For English into Latin, first mark the subject, predicate, and person, number, and tense of each verb, then identify the Latin vocabulary you need, and, finally, put the Latin words into their required form:”
You all prepare well.
- You all (subj. pron.) prepare (2nd plural, pres.) well.
- vōs : parō, par-āre : bene
- Vōs bene parātis. (“I put ‘bene’ before ‘parātis’ because of the vocabulary note on ‘bene’, above.”)
When they ask, you give. (4) “‘You’ without ‘all’ is always singular.”
“Verbs connected by ‘and’ have the same endings if they have the same subject.” We think and change, I hope. (5)
You all hope and prepare well, but she preserves. (6)
“The good news,” she added, “about Unexpressed Subjects is that from now on, whenever I teach you new verb forms to write in your notebook, you do not need to write the pronouns.”
“The Imperfect Tense, you’ll remember, tells you something was happening in the past. When you see the imperfect, translate ‘was verbing’, or ‘were verbing’.”
“For any A-Verb, the Imperfect is formed from the stem plus –ā– (since it’s an A-verb), followed by –bā– and the personal ending; for example: cōgit-ā-ba-m (The vowel of –bā– shortens before m, t, and nt.) Here are the forms for cōgitō in the Imperfect Tense:”
A-Verb Imperfect Tense Endings (C)
-ā-bam-ā-bāmuscōgitābamcōgitābāmus
-ā-bās-ā-bātiscōgitābāscōgitābātis
-ā-bat-ā-bantcōgitābatcōgitābant
I was thinkingwe were thinking
you were thinkingyou all were thinking he she it was thinkingthey were thinking
You were saving, I was giving.Tū servābās, ego dābam. When you were loving, I was hoping. (7)
We were saving but you all were asking. (8)
He was hoping and preparing well, if they were giving. (9) “Where does bene go?”
“Finally, the Future Tense means that the verb’s action will happen in the future. The translation of the Future tense in English is ‘will verb’.
“To form the Future Tense of any A-Verb, start with the stem plus -ā- (since it’s an A-verb), followed by these endings, which all have BO, BI, or BU:”
A-Verbs Future Tense Endings (D)
-ā-bō-ā-bimuscōgitābōcōgitābimus
-ā-bis-ā-bitiscōgitābiscōgitābitis
-ā-bit-ā-buntcōgitābitcōgitābunt
I will thinkwe will think
you will thinkyou all will think
he she it will thinkthey will think
You all will ask, and we will give.Vōs rogābitis, et nōs dabimus. We will ask and I will hope. (10)
She will love when you will prepare. (11)
You all will save, unless they will give. (12)
“Remember:”
BA before the personal endingtells you: Imperfect Tense. (E)
BO BI BU before personal endingtells you: Future Tense.
A cloud passed in front of the sun, making it cooler, as we switched to another topic.