2.6 Present Tense: First Conjugation — Epoché
What you will be able to do Conjugate amō through all six persons of the present. Name the six personal endings -ō -s -t -mus -tis -nt and say what each means. Get the present stem out of an infinitive in -āre . Read a Latin sentence with no pronoun in it and say who the subject is. Read sentences like Alius aliud amat. [32] — One likes one thing, another another. — without looking anything up. Prerequisites : 2.5 — the six cases at a glance. Nouns pause here for five lessons. Verbs work the same way as nouns — an ending carries information English carries elsewhere — but the information is different: not the job in the sentence but who is doing it . This is the single biggest structural difference between Latin and English, and it is easier than it sounds, because there are exactly six endings and they hardly ever change. The table Person Latin English 1st singular amō I love 2nd singular amās you love (one person) 3rd singular amat he, she or it loves 1st plural amāmus we love 2nd plural amātis you love (more than one) 3rd plural amant they love Split each form into stem plus ending and the system appears. Person Stem Ending 1st singular am- -ō (the stem vowel is swallowed) 2nd singular amā- -s 3rd singular ama- -t 1st plural amā- -mus 2nd plural amā- -tis 3rd plural ama- -nt How to read the table The six endings are the whole system. -ō -s -t -mus -tis -nt mark first, second and third person in two numbers, and they do so in every conjugation, every tense of the active, and every mood. Learn them once here and you have them for the whole language. The only thing that changes between conjugations is the vowel in front of them. The stem comes from the infinitive. The dictionary gives amō, amāre, amāvī, amātum . Take the infinitive amāre , cut off the -re , and you have the present stem amā- . Because the vowel is ā , this is the first conjugation . That is what "first conjugation" means: the family whose present stem ends in ā . Two places the long vowel shortens. Before final -t and before -nt the ā goes short: amat , amant , not amāt . This is a general sound law in Latin — a long vowel shortens before a final t and before nt — and it matters for stress: a-MĀ-mus but A-mat . In the first person singular the vowel disappears altogether: amō , not amaō . The pronoun is normally left out. This is the part that takes getting used to. Because amō already says "I", Latin does not write ego unless it wants emphasis or contrast. So a two-word Latin sentence Tē amō is a complete "I love you", and a one-word sentence Amant is a complete "They love". An English speaker's first instinct is to look for the subject and, not finding one, to assume the sentence is incomplete. Retrain that instinct now: the subject is in the verb; look at the last two letters. When a pronoun is written, it is doing work. Compare two sentences from the corpus: Tē amō and Ego tē amō are both "I love you", but the second puts weight on the I — " I love you", as against someone else who does not. Lesson 3.1 deals with emphasis by word order; this is the same principle applied to whether a word is there at all. One more thing about the meaning of the present. Latin's present covers what English splits into three: amō can be "I love", "I am loving" or "I do love", and the context decides. Latin has no continuous forms at all. So when translating, you choose the English that fits — and when reading, you do not look for a distinction that is not there. Seen in real Latin Latin English The verb and its person Amo te. [1] I love you. amō 1st singular; no pronoun needed Ego te amo. [2] I love you. the same, with ego for emphasis Te amat. [3] She loves you. amat 3rd singular — he, she or it Deus me amat. [4] God loves me. 3rd singular with the subject written out Feles amo. [5] I like cats. amō 1st singular; fēlēs is the object, plural Opus meum amo. [6] I love my job. opus neuter accusative — the verb decides Linguam meam amo! [7] I love my language! linguam accusative, 1st declension Eam non amo. [8] I don't love her. nōn stands before the verb it negates Look at the first three together. Amō tē , Tē amō , Tē amat : the order of the two words is free, and what changes the meaning is the last letter of the verb. A reader who watches the order will read all three the same way and be wrong about one of them. And notice how short real Latin sentences are. Amō tē is two words where English needs three, because the pronoun subject is inside the verb. Across a page this adds up: Latin prose is typically a fifth shorter than its English translation, and that compression is one of the things that makes it feel dense when you start reading continuous text in lesson 5.1. New words Word (dictionary form) Meaning Note amō la I love; I like Part of speech verb, 1st conjugation ( amāre, amāvī, amātum ) How it differs from English covers both; hooks: amateur , amiable , amorous Amo te. I love you. Ego te amo. I love you. labōrō la I work; I am in difficulty Part of speech verb, 1st conjugation ( labōrāre, labōrāvī, labōrātum ) How it differs from English the second sense is the older one; hooks: labour , elaborate portō la I carry, I bring Part of speech verb, 1st conjugation ( portāre, portāvī, portātum ) How it differs from English hooks: portable , export , transport vocō la I call, I summon; I name Part of speech verb, 1st conjugation ( vocāre, vocāvī, vocātum ) How it differs from English from vōx ; hooks: vocation , invoke , convocation dēsīderō la I long for, I miss; I need Part of speech verb, 1st conjugation ( dēsīderāre, dēsīderāvī, dēsīderātum ) How it differs from English stronger than English desire ; it includes grief for what is gone fēlēs la cat Part of speech noun, 3rd declension, feminine ( felis ) How it differs from English hooks: feline ; nominative and accusative plural are identical Feles amo. I like cats. quoque la also, too Part of speech adverb How it differs from English stands after the word it applies to, not befor