This article needs additional citations for verification .(July 2011) |
In language learning, the principal parts of a verb are the most fundamental forms of a verb that can be conjugated into any form of the verb. The concept originates in the humanist Latin schools, where students learned verbs by chanting them in the four key forms from which all other forms can be deduced, for example:
Not all languages have to be taught in this way. In French, for example, regular verbs can be deduced from a single form, the infinitive, and irregular verbs are too random to be systematized under fixed parts. But the concept can be carried over to many languages in which the verbs have some kind of "regular irregularity", i.e. irregularity always occurs at the same place in an otherwise regular system.
Although the term 'principal part' is usually applied to verbs, the same phenomenon can be found in some languages in nouns and other word types.
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. Most of the verb forms in Latin derive from the first two principal parts: portābō, "I shall carry", is derived from the root portā-, taken from the present infinitive. However, all active perfect forms are derived from the third principal part (so portāveram, "I had carried", is taken from portāv-) while the perfect participle (portātus, portāta, portātum, "having been carried") is derived from the supine and is used to form the perfect passive participle with the auxiliary verb sum (such as portātum est, "it has been carried"). The auxiliary verb is often dropped when writing poetry in Latin.
For many Latin verbs, the principal parts are predictable: portō shown above uses a single stem, port-, and all principal parts are derived from them with the endings -ō – -āre – -āvī – -ātum. Others have more complicated forms: regō ("I rule") has the perfect form rēxī and perfect participle rēctum, derived as *reg-sī and *reg-tum. A handful of verbs, such as sum – esse – fuī – futūrum ("to be"), are simply irregular.
A number of verbs have fewer than four principal parts: deponent verbs, such as hortŏr – hortāri – hortātus sum, "to exhort", lack a perfect form, as do semi-deponent verbs, such as audeō – audēre – ausus sum, "to dare"; in both cases, passive forms are treated as active, so all perfect forms are covered by the perfect participle. A handful of verbs are also defective, including the verb ōdī – ōdisse, "to hate", which only has perfect forms derived from a single stem.
Verbs in Ancient Greek have six principal parts: present (I), future (II), aorist (III), perfect (IV), perfect middle (V) and aorist passive (VI), each listed in its first-person singular form:
One principal part can sometimes be predicted from another, but not with any certainty. For some classes of verbs, however, all principal parts can be predicted given the first one.
Excluding four common irregular verbs, the principal parts of all other English verbs are the infinitive, preterite and past participle. All forms of these English verbs can be derived from the three principal parts. Four verbs have an unpredictable 3rd person singular form and the verb "to be" is so irregular it has seven separate forms. Lists or recitations of principal parts in English often omit the third principal part's auxiliary verb, rendering it identical to its grammatically distinct participial form. For example, the verb "to take" has the principal parts take – took – (have) taken. The verb "to bet" has bet – bet – (have) bet and the verb "to break" has break – broke – (have) broken. With irregular verbs the simple present 3S (he, she, it) is derived from infinitive+'s' with the exception of spelling changes such as catch – catches, fly – flies and teach – teaches, which follow the same rules for regular 3S verbs.
|
|
|
Most verbs are regular enough that all forms can be derived directly from the infinitive. For example, the verb love derives all its forms systematically (love, loved, loving, has loved, loves), and since these can all be deduced from the basic form (the citation, dictionary, or lexicographic form, which in English is the bare infinitive), no other principal parts have to be learned. With irregular verbs like the verb sing, on the other hand, the forms sang and (have) sung cannot be deduced, so the learner of English must memorize three principal parts, sing – sang – (have) sung. The present 3S (he/she/it) is derived from the infinitive+'s' with the exception of verbs ending in a single -o, or ending in -s, -x, -z or the digraphs -sh, -ch, in which case it is derived from 'infinitive+es'. With three irregular verbs (and their derivatives) the 3S has to be learnt independently (e.g. has, does, undoes, redoes).
|
|
|
There are three verbs (in addition to their derivatives) with an irregular third person singular form in the present tense. As a result, three principal parts are insufficient to conjugate these fully.
|
|
|
The verb "to be" is completely irregular having seven separate forms.
Part | rendering |
---|---|
infinitive | to be |
present 1S | am |
present plural and 2S | are |
present 3S | is |
preterite 1S and 3S | was |
preterite plural and 2S | were |
past participle | been |
The situation in German is very similar to English. Regular verbs require no memorizing of principal parts, since all forms can be deduced from the infinitive. However, some uncertainty may exist as to the choice of the perfect auxiliary, which could be haben ('to have') or sein ('to be'). This can be solved by memorizing the infinitive with the third-person singular perfect tense, which some teachers recommend.
Strong verbs and irregular weak verbs are more complicated. As in English, these verbs are usually memorized by means of three principal parts: infinitive – third-person singular past tense – third-person singular perfect tense.
However, in order to deduce the full paradigm, learners must also know the third-person singular present and the third-person singular past subjunctive, which involve some peculiarities.
A small number of verbs have other irregularities, most of which are limited to the forms of the present tense.
There are four types of principal parts in the Icelandic language, determined by the type of verb:
Icelandic weak verbs have the following principal parts:
First principal part | Second principal part | Third principal part |
---|---|---|
Infinitive | First person singular past tense indicative mood | Past participle |
að borða ("to eat") | ég borðaði ("I ate") | ég hef borðað ("I have eaten) |
Að elska ("to love") | ég elskaði ("I loved") | ég hef elskað ("I have loved") |
It is possible to make the present subjunctive mood (þótt ég borði, "though I eat") from the first principal part (að borða, "to eat"). It is also possible to make the past subjunctive mood (þótt ég borðaði, "though I ate") from the second principal part (ég borðaði, "I ate").
In some other classes of weak verbs without 'a' as the thematic vowel, the present indicative singular undergoes more changes, but they are still to a large extent predictable.
Icelandic strong verbs have the following principal parts:
First principal part | Second principal part | Third principal part | Fourth principal part |
---|---|---|---|
Infinitive | First person singular past tense indicative mood | First person plural past tense indicative mood | Past participle |
Að finna ("to find") | Ég fann ("I found") | Við fundum ("we found") | Ég hef fundið ("I have found") |
It is possible to make the present subjunctive mood (þótt ég finni, "though I find") from the first principal part (að finna, "to find"). It is also possible to make the past subjunctive mood (þótt ég fyndi, "though I found") from the third principal part (við fundum, "we found").
The present singular indicative in this class also undergoes more changes (i-umlaut, dental suffix assimilation etc.), which may let some verbs seem irregular at first glance. They are, however, mainly regular changes, like those in the weak verbs.
Icelandic Preterite-present verbs have the following principal parts:
First principal part | Second principal part | Third principal part | Fourth principal part |
---|---|---|---|
Infinitive | First person singular present tense indicative mood | First person singular past tense indicative mood | Past participle |
Að kunna ("to know") | Ég kann ("I know") | Ég kunni ("I knew") | Ég hef kunnað ("I've known") |
It is possible to make the present subjunctive mood (þótt ég kunni, "though I knew") from the first principal part (að kunna, "to know"). It is also possible to make the past subjunctive mood (þótt ég kynni, "though I knew") from the third principal part (ég kunni, "I knew").
Icelandic Ri-verbs have the following principal parts:
First principal part | Second principal part | Third principal part |
---|---|---|
Infinitive | First person singular past tense indicative mood | Past participle |
Að snúa ("to turn") | Ég sneri [1] ("I turned") | Ég hef snúið ("I have turned") |
Að gróa ("to heal") | Ég greri [1] ("I healed") | Ég hef gróið ("I have healed") |
Að núa ("to rub") | Ég neri [1] ("I rubbed") | Ég hef núið ("I have rubbed") |
Að róa ("to row") | Ég reri [1] ("I rowed") | Ég hef róið ("I have rowed") |
It is possible to make the present subjunctive mood (þótt ég snúi, "though I turn") from the first principal part (að snúa, "to turn"). It is also possible to make the past subjunctive mood (þótt ég sneri, "though I turned") from the second principal part (ég sneri, "I turned").
Excluding a few highly irregular verbs, in Spanish, verbs are traditionally held to have only one principal part, the infinitive, by which one can classify the verb into one of three conjugation paradigms (according to the ending of the infinitive, which may be -ar, -er or -ir). However, some scholars believe that the conjugation could be regularized by adding another principal part to vowel-alternating verbs, which shows the alternation. For example, herir "to hurt" is usually considered irregular because its conjugation contains forms like hiero "I hurt", hieres "you hurt", where the vowel in the root changes into a diphthong. However, by including the first person singular, present tense, indicative mood form (hiero) as a principal part, and noting that the diphthong appears only when that syllable is stressed, the conjugation of herir becomes completely predictable.
Regular verbs are formed from a single principal part (the infinitive), and all conjugations derive from this one principal part. A handful of verbs require spelling changes in which case it can be considered that these verbs technically have two or three principal parts depending on how many spelling changes need to be made. They include doubling a consonant, adding accent markers, adding the letter e, and converting letters for example y becoming i.
Irregular verbs are markedly more complicated, requiring seven principal parts of which few can be easily derived from the infinitive. For some verbs a few of their principal parts are identical with one another.
Principal part | How to get the stem | "Inherited" (regular) value of stem |
---|---|---|
infinitive | Remove ending -er, -ir, -oir, -re | — |
First singular present indicative (1S) | Remove ending -s, -e | Infinitive stem |
First plural present indicative (1P) | Remove ending -ons | Infinitive stem |
Third plural present indicative (3P) | Remove ending -ent | First plural present stem |
(First singular) future (FUT) | Remove ending -ai | Full infinitive stem (minus any -e) |
(Masculine singular) past participle (PP) | Full word | Infinitive stem, plus -i (plus -u if ends -re) |
(First singular) simple past (PAST) | Remove ending -s, -ai | Past participle (minus any -s or -t) |
The paradigm goes as follows:
Indicative | Subjunctive | Conditional | Imperative | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Present | Simple past | Imperfect | Future | Present | Imperfect | Present | Present | |
je | 1S+s | PAST+s | 1P+ais | FUT+ai | 3P+e | PAST+sse | FUT+ais | |
tu | FUT+as | 3P+es | PAST+sses | (same as pres. indic. 3rd. sg. if ends with vowel, else 2nd. sg.) | ||||
il/elle | 1S+t1 | PAST+t | 1P+ait | FUT+a | 3P+e | PAST+ˆt | FUT+ait | |
nous | 1P+ons | PAST+ˆmes | 1P+ions | FUT+ons | 1P+ions | PAST+ssions | FUT+ions | (same as pres. indic. 1st pl.) |
vous | 1P+ez | PAST+ˆtes | 1P+iez | FUT+ez | 1P+iez | PAST+ssiez | FUT+iez | (same as pres. indic. 2nd pl.) |
ils/elles | 3P+ent | PAST+rent | 1P+aient | FUT+ont | 3P+ent | PAST+ssent | FUT+aient |
1 The -t is regularly dropped when directly following a d or t (e.g. il vend "he sells", not *il vendt).
Indicative | Subjunctive | Conditional | Imperative | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Present | Simple past | Imperfect | Future | Present Perfect | Present | Imperfect | Present | Present | |
je / j' | plais | plus | plaisais | plairai | ai plu | plaise | plusse | plairais | |
tu | plairas | as plu | plaises | plusses | plais | ||||
il/elle | plaît | plut | plaisait | plaira | a plu | plaise | plût | plairait | |
nous | plaisons | plûmes | plaisions | plairons | avons plu | plaisions | plussions | plairions | plaisons |
vous | plaisez | plûtes | plaisiez | plairez | avez plu | plaisiez | plussiez | plairiez | plaisez |
ils/elles | plaisent | plurent | plaisaient | plairont | ont plu | plaisent | plussent | plairaient |
A few highly irregular verbs require 11 principal parts to conjugate them fully. It includes all of the seven principal parts as well as a subjunctive form and different present participle forms, imperative forms and present-participle forms.
The verbs être, avoir and aller are so irregular they require even more than 11 principal parts.
In Scottish Gaelic there are two principal parts for the regular verb: the imperative and the verbal noun, for example pòg – pògadh 'to kiss'. All finite forms can be deduced from the imperative pòg ('kiss!'), all non-finite forms from the verbal noun pògadh ('kissing'). The ten irregular verbs can, with only two or three small aberrations (unexpected lenition), be deduced from four principal parts.
The principal parts of a Ganda verb are the imperative (identical to the verb stem), the first person singular of the present tense and the modified stem. For example, the verb okwogera 'to speak' has the principal parts yogera – njogera – yogedde.
The present tense, far past tense, near future tense, far future tense, subjunctive and infinitive are derived from the imperative. The present perfect, conditional and near past tense are derived from the modified stem.
In theory the second principal part can be derived from the first, but in practice this is so complicated that it is usually memorised as a separate principal part.
(See also Ganda verbs.)
Infinitive is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs that do not show a tense. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all languages. The name is derived from Late Latin [modus] infinitivus, a derivative of infinitus meaning "unlimited".
In linguistics and grammar, conjugation has two basic meanings. One meaning is the creation of derived forms of a verb from basic forms, or principal parts.
In linguistics, a defective verb is a verb that either lacks a conjugated form or entails incomplete conjugation, and thus cannot be conjugated for certain grammatical tenses, aspects, persons, genders, or moods that the majority of verbs or a "normal" or regular verb in a particular language can be conjugated for. That is to say, a defective verb lacks forms that most verbs in a particular language have.
Verbs constitute one of the main parts of speech in the English language. Like other types of words in the language, English verbs are not heavily inflected. Most combinations of tense, aspect, mood and voice are expressed periphrastically, using constructions with auxiliary verbs.
In Portuguese grammar, nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and articles are moderately inflected: there are two genders and two numbers. The case system of the ancestor language, Latin, has been lost, but personal pronouns are still declined with three main types of forms: subject, object of verb, and object of preposition. Most nouns and many adjectives can take diminutive or augmentative derivational suffixes, and most adjectives can take a so-called "superlative" derivational suffix. Adjectives usually follow their respective nouns.
In French, a verb is inflected to reflect its mood and tense, as well as to agree with its subject in person and number. Following the tradition of Latin grammar, the set of inflected forms of a French verb is called the verb's conjugation.
Proto-Indo-European verbs reflect a complex system of morphology, more complicated than the substantive, with verbs categorized according to their aspect, using multiple grammatical moods and voices, and being conjugated according to person, number and tense. In addition to finite forms thus formed, non-finite forms such as participles are also extensively used.
A feature common to all Indo-European languages is the presence of a verb corresponding to the English verb to be.
Non-finite verbs, are verb forms that do not show tense, person, or number. They include:
In French grammar, verbs are a part of speech. Each verb lexeme has a collection of finite and non-finite forms in its conjugation scheme.
Conjugation is the variation in the endings of verbs (inflections) depending on the person, tense and mood. Most French verbs are regular and their inflections can be entirely determined by their infinitive form. If not regular, a verb may incur changes its stem, changes in the endings or spelling adjustments for the sake of keeping correct pronunciation.
Sanskrit has inherited from its parent, the Proto-Indo-European language, an elaborate system of verbal morphology, much of which has been preserved in Sanskrit as a whole, unlike in other kindred languages, such as Ancient Greek or Latin. Sanskrit verbs thus have an inflection system for different combinations of tense, aspect, mood, voice, number, and person. Non-finite forms such as participles are also extensively used.
Icelandic grammar is the set of structural rules that describe the use of the Icelandic language.
Romance verbs are the most inflected part of speech in the language family. In the transition from Latin to the Romance languages, verbs went through many phonological, syntactic, and semantic changes. Most of the distinctions present in classical Latin continued to be made, but synthetic forms were often replaced with more analytic ones. Other verb forms changed meaning, and new forms also appeared.
Verbs in Middle High German are divided into strong or weak verbs. Strong verbs indicate tense by a change in the quality of a vowel, while weak verbs indicate tense by the addition of an ending.
Ancient Greek verbs have four moods, three voices, as well as three persons and three numbers.
This article discusses the conjugation of verbs in a number of varieties of Catalan-Valencian, including Old Catalan. Each verbal form is accompanied by its phonetic transcription. Widely used dialectal forms are included, even if they are not considered standard in either of the written norms: those of the Institut d'Estudis Catalans and the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua. Other dialectal forms exist, including those characteristic of minor dialects such as Ribagorçan and Algherese and transitional forms of major dialects.
Portuguese verbs display a high degree of inflection. A typical regular verb has over fifty different forms, expressing up to six different grammatical tenses and three moods. Two forms are peculiar to Portuguese within the Romance languages:
A regular verb is any verb whose conjugation follows the typical pattern, or one of the typical patterns, of the language to which it belongs. A verb whose conjugation follows a different pattern is called an irregular verb. This is one instance of the distinction between regular and irregular inflection, which can also apply to other word classes, such as nouns and adjectives.
Hindustani verbs conjugate according to mood, tense, person, number, and gender. Hindustani inflection is markedly simpler in comparison to Sanskrit, from which Hindustani has inherited its verbal conjugation system. Aspect-marking participles in Hindustani mark the aspect. Gender is not distinct in the present tense of the indicative mood, but all the participle forms agree with the gender and number of the subject. Verbs agree with the gender of the subject or the object depending on whether the subject pronoun is in the dative or ergative case or the nominative case.