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What did the Romans consider the "basic" form of a verb?
First person singular (laudo) appears to be most common
Marcus Terentius Varro (116-27 BC) wrote De Lingua Latina, which survives in partial, corrupted form, but which provides valuable testimony on ...
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What were the original Latin verbs for the Spanish verbs?
Unfortunately, your source is slightly misleading.
It's true that verbs formed from nouns and verbs denoting repeated action in Latin tend to be in the -āre conjugation. However, many other ...
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I can't find a nice literal translation for "Stella caeli exstirpavit"
Start out with a line-by-line (lineatim?) translation:
The star of heaven eradicated
That breastfed the Lord
The sickness of death, which planted
First the parent of men.
Rearranging this a bit:
...
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Why "dilatasti" instead of "dilatavisti" in Psalm 4:2?
This is a contracted perfect form, which is fairly common in poetry, particularly in the first conjugation.
Basically, whenever you have a second person perfect active ending in -āvisti (like ...
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What does the word "habe" (habere) mean?
Bonum animum habere means "to have good courage, to be confident." This expression is used, for example, in the plays of Plautus.
I think you are somewhat mistaken when you characterize (in ...
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Verbing in Latin
There are at least some cases in which this can be done, with different shades of meaning.
graecisso (-izo), āre, v. n., = Γραικίζω, to imitate the Greeks, to adopt a Grecian manner or tone: atque ...
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How do you show an infinitive for reason?
In Latin, the infinitive is not used to introduce a reason, or "purpose clause" as a Latin grammar would put it. Here are some other options, which I will gear toward the (very broad) use ...
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Does 'verbum' mean both word and verb?
The OLD provides several examples of verba meaning "verb" (as opposed to vocabulum or nomen, "noun." Aside from two instances in Varro:
Hor.Ars 235; nec a ~is modo, sed ab nominibus quoque deriuata ...
cmw♦
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What's the difference between mutantur and mutamur?
Both are conjugated in the present tense, passive voice, and indicative mood, from the same verb: muto. The difference is that mutamur is conjugated in the 1st person (plural) (“we change”), while ...
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How can one predict the length of theme vowels in verbs?
Whether or not this is how the forms really developed, this is how I organize it in my head.
And it has proven quite efficient, so I consider it a good description of what classical Latin conjugation ...
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Why is it "dare" and not "dāre" when most first conjugation verbs spell like "amāre"?
The story, as often, has to do with Proto-Indo-European laryngeals. Both these verbs had a laryngeal as the last consonant of the root: *deh₃-, *steh₂-. All the forms in Latin are based on the zero ...
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Dropping "to be" and other verbs in Latin?
It definitely isn't rare, and it definitely isn't found only in poetry. Any good Latin grammar will address this topic.
In Gildersleeve and Lodge, Latin grammar, the index entry for esse includes a ...
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Why does the length of a vowel before verb endings change?
Most people just memorize it. There are only four patterns to learn—all first-conjugation verbs will go -ō -ās -at -āmus -ātis -ant, for example—so this tends to be enough.
From a historical-...
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Why is there no predicate in "in vino veritas"?
Pinkster 2015 mentions the following observable trends regarding the omission of esse.
it is more frequent with the 3rd person than in the 1st or 2nd;
it is more frequent with present indicative ...
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How do I use gerundives of obligation for deponent verbs?
Before we understand the gerundive of a deponent verb, we need to first understand the particples of deponent verbs.
Participles of Deponent Verbs
Deponent verbs are often described as verbs with &...
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What verb is wine made with?
Cato Maior devotes a large subsection of De Agri Cultura to wine. You can read the entire text here, and as can be expected, he sticks to very simple verbs:
general:
making: vinum Graecum sic facito
...
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What form is 'numerārī'?
You are correct, this is a passive infinitive: "to be counted".
The passive versions of amāre, habēre, currere, and audīre are amārī, habērī, currī, and audīrī.
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Latin for English "has been" + adjective?
I'd say you want the present tense. A&G 466, "Present with iam diu etc.":
The Present with expressions of duration of time (especially iam diu, iam dudum) denotes an action continuing in the ...
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How do you show an infinitive for reason?
The answer above is pretty comprehensive! I don't yet have the reputation points to make this into a comment, rather than a full answer, but there are a few things worth adding.
First, In the case ...
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Imperatives of derivatives of facere, dicere and ducere
To supplement Tom Cotton's answer—
There's one other verb which similarly shortens its imperative: ferō, ferre, tulī, lātus, imperative fer, ferte. Compounds always use the shortened/apocopated form (...
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Is the Spanish translation of the "Exultet" chant literal?
You are correct to say that this is not a 'literal' translation. Turba is a feminine singular noun, and exultet is rightly singular. I'm not sure coro is the right word, though. Interestingly, turba ...
cmw♦
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Dominus illuminatio mea
The verb est is omitted but implied. The motto is taken from the start of Psalm 27 (or 26):
Dominus illuminatio mea et salus mea; quem timebo?
Dominus protector vitae meae; a quo trepidabo?
The Lord ...
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Alea iacta est, plural version?
The plural would be aleae iactae sunt.
Alea / aleae is nominative, because it's the subject of a passive verb-form.
Note that, if you used the accusative case for alea, the verb would have to be in ...
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Are Deponent Verbs a feature of the Latin Language or Means of Translation?
Indeed, historically deponents are descended from a middle/reflexive voice. In historical usage, though, deponents lost this, and can take a direct object. See e.g.:
te sequor
aggredior hominem
te ...
cmw♦
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Do plural names referring to a singular thing require a plural verb?
Plural place names should have plural verbs. A very simple case of this is Athenae, -arum (Athens). Here's an illuminating example from Cicero:
in quam cum intueor, maxime mihi occurrunt, Attice, ...
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Why is the first person singular the citation form?
Let me try to approach this from a slightly different angle:
What would work as a citation form?
A good citation form would be such that you could deduce all other forms (from the present stem) from ...
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Creating place names from Latin verbs?
Almost there, but the -t- belongs to the verb, not suffix. In particular, it's the fourth principle part (the supine/perfect participle) of the verb.
For the verb:
vomo, vomere, vomui, vomitus (or -...
cmw♦
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Shouldn't be "intravisset" instead of "intrasset"?
Intrāsset is what is commonly called a syncopated form of intrāvisset. In verb forms built on the perfect stem, which includes the pluperfect, -vi- or -ve- can just be omitted, with no change in ...
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What is the optative?
Latin as we know it never had an optative mood as distinct from the subjunctive, so this answer will be largely about Proto-Indo-European (PIE), which did.
PIE had both a subjunctive mood and an ...
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Does the perfect "faxit" have an optative sense?
It's actually not indicative, but subjunctive. I know Perseus' morph tool parses it as both indicative and subjunctive, but both Gildersleeve and the OLD say it's subjunctive and do not mention ...
cmw♦
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