2.13 The Imperfect — Epoché
What you will be able to do Build the imperfect of all four conjugations with one infix. Say the three things the Latin imperfect covers that English splits between different forms. Recognise -bā- anywhere in a text and know at once what tense you are in. Read the imperfect of sum and possum , which do not use the infix. Read sentences like Hic liber valde parvus est. [35] — This is a very small book. — without looking anything up. Prerequisites : 2.12 — the fourth conjugation and all four families. The imperfect is the easiest tense in Latin and the most useful one to have early, because narrative runs on it. It is made by putting -bā- between the stem and the personal endings, and it works the same way in every conjugation with no exceptions worth the name. Having it means you can read continuous past prose, which is most of what you will meet in the Reading volume. The table Person First Second 1st singular amābam I was loving monēbam 2nd singular amābās monēbās 3rd singular amābat monēbat 1st plural amābāmus monēbāmus 2nd plural amābātis monēbātis 3rd plural amābant monēbant Person Third Fourth 1st singular regēbam audiēbam 2nd singular regēbās audiēbās 3rd singular regēbat audiēbat 1st plural regēbāmus audiēbāmus 2nd plural regēbātis audiēbātis 3rd plural regēbant audiēbant And sum , which does not use the infix at all: eram, erās, erat, erāmus, erātis, erant . possum follows it: poteram, poterās, poterat, poterāmus, poterātis, poterant . How to read the table One infix, four stems. The recipe is: take the present stem, add -bā- , add the personal endings. The only wrinkle is the joining vowel in the third and fourth conjugations, where -ē- appears before the -bā- : reg-ē-bam , audi-ē-bam . Learn -ēbam as the third-and-fourth form and you have covered everything. The first person singular ends in -m , not -ō . This is the same older ending you met in sum . From here on, remember that -ō is the first-person ending of the present only; every other tense and mood uses -m . That single fact will save you a great deal of confusion in the second phase. -bā- is the most recognisable string in Latin morphology. If you see it in the middle of a verb, you are in the imperfect, and you do not need to know the verb to know that. That makes the imperfect the first tense you can identify at sight, and it is worth practising as a reading reflex: scan for -bā- and the tense falls out. What the tense means, and why English needs three forms for it. The Latin imperfect describes a past action in progress, repeated, or attempted — it looks at the action from inside rather than as a completed whole. English has to choose: Latin English Which sense Scrībēbat. He was writing. in progress Scrībēbat. He used to write. repeated, habitual Scrībēbat. He tried to write. attempted — the "conative" imperfect Scrībēbat. He began to write. starting — the "inceptive" imperfect Four English renderings of one Latin word, and the context chooses. The third is the one that surprises people: an imperfect can describe an attempt that failed, which is why dabat can mean "he was offering" rather than "he gave". When you reach Caesar in the fourth phase you will find this constantly — a general oppugnābat a town, "was attacking", which may well mean he tried and did not take it. The contrast with the perfect, which arrives in the second phase, is the whole of Latin tense. The perfect looks at an action as a completed event: scrīpsit , "he wrote", "he has written". The imperfect looks at it as a process: scrībēbat . English marks this distinction only sometimes and Latin marks it always, which means a Latin writer is making a choice on every past verb and you are reading that choice. Seen in real Latin Latin English The verb Quam pulchra erat! [1] How beautiful she was! erat — imperfect of sum , no infix Pulchra fuit. [2] She was pretty. ★ fuit is the perfect — a completed state Deus mortuus est. [3] God is dead. a participle with est — not the imperfect Quid erat ei nomen? [4] What was her name? erat with a dative — the possession pattern in the past Quod tibi opus erat? [5] What did you need? the same pattern: "what was a need to you?" Vir tuus in hac terra non fuit. [6] Your husband was not in this country. perfect again — a fact, not a process Senex cecidit in terra. [7] The old man fell down on the ground. perfect cecidit — a single completed event Vita bona erat. [8] Life was good. a feminine adjective with the imperfect of sum The corpus is a collection of short modern sentences, so it is rich in the perfect and comparatively thin in the imperfect — the imperfect belongs to continuous narrative, and short exchanges do not have any. That is itself worth knowing: the tense you will meet most depends on what you are reading. When the Reading volume moves to Phaedrus's fables in lesson 5.6, the imperfect will suddenly be everywhere, because a story told at length needs it. Put the first two side by side. Quam pulchra erat! and Pulchra fuit both translate as "she was beautiful", and they do not mean the same thing. The imperfect describes how she was during some stretch of time; the perfect states it as a completed fact, and in English one would more naturally say "she was a beauty" or "she had been pretty". This is the distinction the second phase is built around. New words Word (dictionary form) Meaning Note eram la I was, I used to be Part of speech verb, imperfect of sum How it differs from English no -bā- ; built on the stem er- poteram la I could, I was able Part of speech verb, imperfect of possum How it differs from English pot- + eram ; follows sum exactly oppugnō la I attack, I assault a place Part of speech verb, 1st conjugation ( oppugnāre, oppugnāvī, oppugnātum ) How it differs from English the imperfect often means "tried to take"; hooks: pugnacious senex la an old man; as an adjective, old Part of speech noun, 3rd declension, masculine ( senis ) How it differs from English hooks: senate , senile , senior Sen