Re: latin verb examples and tense meanings

At 1:59 pm -0500 13/1/00, Steg Belsky wrote:
>hi,
>
>still unable to get ahold of a latin dictionary, would anyone be able to
>give me an example of a regular verb in each of the latin infinitives?
>(-’re, etc.)  i'll put them into verbix.com and use the conjugation in
>order to make jšdajca.
>also, can anyone explain to me the usages of the different latin tenses?
>i was looking through my printout of "am’re" and i couldn't find the
>tense that yeilded the spanish preterit tense....none of what looked like
>"past" tenses seemed to be the ancestor of -È, -aste, -Û, etc.
Ok.  The infinitives by themselves are not sufficient to distinguish, even
with macrons (long marks) added; that's why Latin principal parts are give
the 1st pers. sing. of the present indicative active, followed by the
present infinitive active.  Infact all the synthetic tenses are formed from
two verbal stems, one known as in 'infectum' which can inferred from these
first two principal parts, and one known as the 'perfectum' which is given
by the 3rd principal part.  There is also a fourth principal part, the
supine, from which may be derived both the future active and the perfect
passive participles; the latter is used with the verb 'to be' to form
certain analytic passive tenses.

First the infectum.  It is only in the tenses formed on this stem that the
conjugations differ.  Also, it is only in tenses (more often just the
present) that irregular verbs "do their own thing".

amo, amare - 1st conjugation
teneo, tenere - 2nd conjugation
mitto, mittere - 3rd conjugation
capio, capere - a subdivision of the 3rd, often called 'capio' verbs.
audio, audire - 4th conjugation

If a verb falls into one of the above patterns, it will be conjugated
regularly according to that conjugation.  There are no exceptions -
irregular verbs thoughfully always mark themselves in that their first two
principal parts do not conform to any of the five patterns above  :)

The tenses formed from the infectum are:
present, imperfect & future indicative, both active & passive;
present & imperfect subjunctive, both active & passive.

the meanings of the indicative tenses are broadly:
present - something happening now (Eng. present continuous - teneo "I am
sending"); something that is presently true or habitual (Eng. present
simple - I send (them  letter each week)); something that began in the past
& is still happening (Eng. pres. perfecr continuous: I have been sending
(him a present on his birthday for the last twenty year - and am still
doing it)).

imperfect - really the past of the present.  But be careful: it means the
English past simple only in the sense "used to", "was wont to" - it doesn't
denote a simple past action.  Thus: I was sending; I sent (him a letter
every week, but he never replied), I used to send; I had been sending.

future - the various meanings of the English future simple & future continuous.

The subjunctives are a rather matter; they were used mainly (tho not
entirely) in subordinate clauses & whether one used the present or perfect
depended upon a rule of 'sequence of tense'.

The present & imperfect indicative & the present subjunctive all survived
in VL.  The future indicative did not & was replaced everywhere by
preiphrastic forms.   The imperfect subjunctive also did not generally
survive and, of course, all the passive forms were lost.

I assume verbix.com will give full paradigms (if not, I certainly can  :).
The 3rd person sing. (shows up the differences better than the 1st sing,
IMO) of the various active tenses are:

pres. indic.    amat    tenet    mittit    capit     audit
imperf. indic.  amabat  tenebat  mittebat  capiebat  audiebat
fut. indic.     amabit  tenebit  mittet    capiet    audiet

pres. indic.    amet    teneat   mittat    capiat    audiat
imperf. subj.   amaret  teneret  mitteret  caperet   audiret

The only significant difference in the forms that survived in VL are the
imperf. indic. of the 4th conj - audibat (which was found in Clasiccal
verse).

The ancestor of the Spanish past tense (and the Port. & Italian past
definite tense, & the past historic of French & Romanian) is the Latin
perfect.  This is formed from the perfectum which is the 3rd principal part
with the final -i.
Although, particicularly in thre 3rd conj. verbs could be unpredictable in
the formation of the perfectum, all the forms derived from it have the same
endings for _all_ verbs, including those with irregular forms in the
infectum (even including 'to be').

The tenses formed from the perfectum are _active only_; they are the:
perfect, pluperfect & future perfect indicative active;
perfect & pluperfect subjunctive active.

The meanings of the indicative tenses are broadly:
perfect indic - may have the same meaning as the English the English
present perfect: I have sent (him, & he's on his way now).  It may also be
the simple past denoting some action in the past: I sent (the letter the
other day).
pluperfect - very much the same as the English past perfect: I had sent
future perfect - I shall/will have sent. But used often in temporal clauses
when Eng uses has just a present: When you _arrive_, you'll find....  Latin
will say: When you will have arrive, you'll find....

Again, subjunctives are mainly used in subordinate clauses & whether one
has perfect or pluperfect is conditioned by the sequence of tense rule.

The perfect indic. in full is, e.g.
ce:pi:        ce:pimus
ce:pisti:     ce:pistis
ce:pit        ce:pe:runt (also: ce:perunt _or_ ce:pe:re in verse)

Unfortunately, many perfects are formed with a long vowel + ui: (w:i).
These not infrequently had contracted forms in verse, e.g. ama:uisti: ->
ama:sti:.  It is clear these contractions were the norm in speech.  Thus VL
upset the startling regularity of the written language.  Thus the VL perf.
of amare would be (no long vowels, only stress):
  a'mai                 a'mammos
  a'masti               a'mastes
  a'mait/ a'maut        a'maront

Note, that unlike the Classical the stress in VL stays on the same syllable
in such verbs.

The other tenses of the perfectum are:
pluperfect indic.: ce:peram, ce:pera:s, ce:perat etc
fut. perf. incic.: ce:pero, ce:peris, ce:perit
perfect subj.    : ce:perim, ce:peri:s, ce:perit etc
pluperf. subj.   : ce:pissem, cepisse:s, ce:pisset etc.

The pluerf. subj. lived on as the imperf. subj. of the Romance langs.   The
future perf. & perfect subj. were often confused & fell together; it and
the pluperfect indic. survived only in the Iberia peninsular IIRC.

The supine was identical with the neuter sing. of the perfect passive
participle.  This part. was used with the infectum (never perfectum) tenses
of 'to be' to supply the "missing" perfect passive forms, thus:
perfect indic.   : captum est
pluperfect indic.: captum erat
fut. perf. incic.: captum erit
perfect subj.    : captum sit
pluperf. subj.   : captum esset

It's getting late& I must stop - hope the above helps and that I haven't
inserted too many typos  :)

Ray.



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A mind which thinks at its own expense
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