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The main Latin tenses can be divided into two groups: the present system (also known as infectum tenses), consisting of the present, future, and imperfect; and the perfect system (also known as perfectum tenses), consisting of the perfect, future perfect, and pluperfect. [1] [2] [3] [4]
The word "conjugation" comes from the Latin coniugātiō, a calque of the Greek συζυγία (syzygia), literally "yoking together (horses into a team)". For examples of verbs and verb groups for each inflectional class, see the Wiktionary appendix pages for first conjugation , second conjugation , third conjugation , and fourth conjugation .
The imperfect indicative generally has an imperfective meaning and describes situations in the past. Often the imperfect can be translated into English as 'was doing', but sometimes the simple tense 'did' or expressions such as 'used to do', 'would do', 'kept doing', 'began to do', 'had been doing' are more appropriate.
In Latin, the perfect tense most commonly functions as the preterite, and refers to an action completed in the past. If the past action was not completed, one would use the imperfect. The perfect in Latin also functions in other circumstances as a present perfect. Typical conjugation:
Latin is a heavily inflected language with largely free word order. Nouns are inflected for number and case; pronouns and adjectives (including participles) are inflected for number, case, and gender; and verbs are inflected for person, number, tense, aspect, voice, and mood.
Latin word order is relatively free. The verb may be found at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of a sentence; an adjective may precede or follow its noun (vir bonus or bonus vir both mean 'a good man'); [5] and a genitive may precede or follow its noun ('the enemies' camp' can be both hostium castra and castra hostium; the latter is more common). [6]
Latin example English translation Comment imperfect in imperfect present in future 'present subjunctive' quaerēs fortāsse, cūr, cum haec in urbe sint, nōn absim, quemadmodum tū. (Cicero) [45] '[one day] you may ask yourself why, since this will take place in the city, I will not be away [from our city] like you' will do in English
In Latin, most verbs have four principal parts.For example, the verb for "to carry" is given as portō – portāre – portāvī – portātum, where portō is the first-person singular present active indicative ("I carry"), portāre is the present active infinitive ("to carry"), portāvī is the first-person singular perfect active indicative ("I carried"), and portātum is the neuter supine.