Romanian verbs

Last updated September 08, 2024

Romanian verbs are highly inflected in comparison to English, but markedly simple in comparison to Latin, from which Romanian has inherited its verbal conjugation system (through Vulgar Latin). Unlike its nouns, Romanian verbs behave in a similar way to those of other Romance languages such as French, Spanish, and Italian. They conjugate according to mood, tense, voice, person and number. Aspect is not an independent feature in Romanian verbs, although it does manifest itself clearly in the contrast between the imperfect and the compound perfect tenses as well as within the presumptive mood. Also, gender is not distinct except in the past participle tense, in which the verb behaves like an adjective.

Verb paradigm

There are nine moods into which a verb can be put, with five of them being personal (having a different form for each person) and four non-personal.^[1] As an example, the tables below show the verb a face ("to do") at all moods, tenses, persons and numbers. Only positive forms in the active voice are given. The corresponding personal pronouns are not included; unlike English verbs, Romanian verbs generally have different forms for each person and number, so pronouns are most often dropped except for emphasis. The English equivalents in the tables (one for each mood and tense) are only an approximative indication of the meaning.

Mood	Tense	Number and person						English equivalent (only sg. 1st)
Personal moods
		Singular			Plural
		1st	2nd	3rd	1st	2nd	3rd
Indicative	Present	fac	faci	face	facem	faceți	fac	I do, I am doing
	Simple perfect (preterite)	făcui	făcuși	făcu	făcurăm	făcurăți	făcură	I have (just) done, I did
	Imperfect	făceam	făceai	făcea	făceam	făceați	făceau	I was doing, I used to do
	Pluperfect	făcusem	făcuseși	făcuse	făcuserăm	făcuserăți	făcuseră	I had done
	Compound perfect	am făcut	ai făcut	a făcut	am făcut	ați făcut	au făcut	I did, I have done
	Future	voi face	vei face	va face	vom face	veți face	vor face	I will do
	Future (popular, 1)	am să fac	ai să faci	are să facă	avem să facem	aveți să faceți	au să facă	I'll do
	Future (popular, 2)	o să fac	o să faci	o să facă	o să facem	o să faceți	o să facă^{[nb 1]}	I'll do
	Future-in-the-past (popular)	aveam să fac	aveai să faci	avea să facă	aveam să facem	aveați să faceți	aveau să facă	I was going to do
	Future perfect	voi fi făcut	vei fi făcut	va fi făcut	vom fi făcut	veți fi făcut	vor fi făcut	I will have done
Subjunctive	Present	să fac	să faci	să facă	să facem	să faceți	să facă	that I do, to do
Subjunctive	Past	să fi făcut						that I did, to have done
Optative- Conditional	Present	aș face	ai face	ar face	am face	ați face	ar face	I would do
Optative- Conditional	Past	aș fi făcut	ai fi făcut	ar fi făcut	am fi făcut	ați fi făcut	ar fi făcut	I would have done
Presumptive	Present	oi face		o face	om face	oți face	or face	I might do
	Present progressive	oi fi făcând		o fi făcând	om fi făcând	oți fi făcând	or fi făcând	I might be doing
	Past	oi fi făcut		o fi făcut	om fi făcut	oți fi făcut	or fi făcut	I might have done
Imperative	Present	–	fă!	–	–	faceți!	–	do! (2nd person only)

Mood	Tense	Verb forms	English equivalent
Non-personal moods
Infinitive	Present	a face	to do
Infinitive	Past	a fi făcut	to have done
Participle	Past	făcut (sg., masc.) făcută (sg., fem.) făcuți (pl., masc.) făcute (pl., fem.)	done
Gerund	–	făcând	doing
Supine	–	de făcut	(something) to do

Usage

Simple perfect

The simple perfect has been replaced by the compound perfect in most of the Romanian varieties; it is commonly used in the Oltenian vernacular (graiul oltenesc) to denote recent actions that still affect the present situation: mâncai (I have just eaten). In the literary standard, the simple perfect is used almost exclusively in writing, where the author refers to the characters' actions as they take place. For that reason, the second person is practically never used, whereas the first person appears only when the writer includes himself among the characters.

Imperfect

In Romanian, the compound perfect is often used where other Romance languages would use the imperfect. For example, the English sentence My father was Romanian requires the imperfect when translated into languages like French and Italian, whereas in this context in Romanian the compound perfect form Tatăl meu a fost român is frequently used instead of the imperfect Tatăl meu era român.

Past participle

Verbs in the past participle are used in their singular masculine form when they are part of compound tenses (compound perfect, future perfect, past subjunctive, etc.) in the active voice. As part of a verb in the passive voice, the past participle behaves like adjectives, and thus must agree in number and gender with the subject:

Active voice: Am făcut curat în casă. (I cleaned the house.)
Passive voice: Echipa adversă a fost făcută praf. (The opposing team was laid to waste.)

Conjugation groups

From an etymological point of view, Romanian verbs are categorized into four large conjugation groups depending on the ending in the infinitive mood, and this is the verb classification that is currently taught in schools.^[2]

Conjugation	Ending	Examples	Notes
I	–a	a da (to give) a crea (to create) a veghea (to ward)	Verbs ending in hiatus ea are included here, as well as verbs ending in -chea and -ghea, due to their first conjugation-like behavior
II	–ea	a putea (to be able to, can) a cădea (to fall) a vedea (to see)	only when ea is a diphthong (also see above)
III	–e	a vinde (to sell) a crede (to believe) a alege (to choose)
IV	–i or –î	a ști (to know) a veni (to come) a hotărî (to decide)

Most verbs fall in the first conjugation group with another large number ending in –i (fourth group).

This classification only partially helps in identifying the correct conjugation pattern. Each group is further split into smaller classes depending on the actual morphological processes that occur. For example, a cânta (to sing) and a lucra (to work) both belong to the first conjugation group, but their indicative first person singular forms are eu cânt (I sing) and eu lucrez (I work), which shows different conjugation mechanisms.

A more appropriate classification, which provides useful information on the actual conjugation pattern, groups all regular verbs into 11 conjugation classes, as shown below.

Class	Identification	Examples (one from each sound change type)
V₁	infinitive ending in -a, present indicative without infix	a ajuta, a arăta, a aștepta, a ierta, a toca, a apăra, a îmbrăca, a prezenta, a apăsa, a măsura, a căpăta, a semăna, a pieptăna, a amâna, a intra, a lătra, a apropia, a mângâia, a tăia, a despuia, deochea
V₂	infinitive ending in -a, present indicative with infix -ez-	a lucra, a studia, împerechea
V₃	infinitive ending in -i, present indicative singular 3rd person ending in -e	a fugi, a despărți, a ieși, a repezi, a dormi, a muri, a veni, a sui, a îndoi, a jupui
V₄	infinitive ending in -i, present indicative singular 3rd person ending in -ă	a oferi, a suferi
V₅	infinitive ending in -i, present indicative singular 3rd person ending in -ește	a povesti, a trăi
V₆	infinitive ending in -î, present indicative singular 3rd person ending in -ă	a vârî, a coborî
V₇	infinitive ending in -î, present indicative singular 3rd person ending in -ăște	a hotărî
V₈	infinitive ending in diphthong -ea	a apărea, a cădea, a ședea, a vedea, a putea
V₉	infinitive ending in -e, past participle ending in -ut	a pierde, a cere, a crede, a bate, a cunoaște, a coase, a vinde, a ține, a umple
V₁₀	infinitive ending in -e, past participle ending in -s	a prinde, a rade, a roade, a plânge, a trage, a merge, a zice, a întoarce, a permite, a scoate, a pune, a rămâne, a purcede, a scrie
V₁₁	infinitive ending in -e, past participle ending in -t or -pt	a rupe, a fierbe, a înfrânge, a sparge, a frige, a coace

Nevertheless, even such a classification does not consider all possible sound alternances. A full classification, considering all combinations of sound changes and ending patterns, contains about seventy types, not including irregular verbs.

Irregular verbs

There are various kinds of irregularity, such as multiple radicals whose choice is conditioned phonetically or etymologically and exceptional endings. The following is a list of the most frequent irregular verbs:

a avea "to have"
a fi "to be"
a vrea "to want"
a sta "to sit, stand, or remain"
a da "to give"
a azvârli "to throw"
a lua "to take"
a bea "to drink"
a ști "to know"
a usca "to dry"
a continua "to continue"
a mânca "to eat"
a întârzia "to come late"

Notes

↑ In contemporary Romanian there is a tendency towards replacing o să with or să for the third person plural.See Gramatica limbii române, vol. I, p. 441.

Related Research Articles

Infinitive is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs. 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.

The verbal morphology of Armenian is complicated by the existence of two main dialects, Eastern and Western. The following sketch will be a comparative look at both dialects.

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.

Spanish verbs form one of the more complex areas of Spanish grammar. Spanish is a relatively synthetic language with a moderate to high degree of inflection, which shows up mostly in Spanish 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.

The pluperfect, usually called past perfect in English, characterizes certain verb forms and grammatical tenses involving an action from an antecedent point in time. Examples in English are: "we had arrived" before the game began; "they had been writing" when the bell rang.

A feature common to all Indo-European languages is the presence of a verb corresponding to the English verb to be.

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.

French conjugation is the variation in the endings of French verbs (inflections) depending on the person, tense and mood. Most verbs are regular and can be entirely determined by their infinitive form, however irregular verbs require the knowledge of more than just the infinitive form, known as the principal parts, of which there are seven in French. With the knowledge of these seven principal parts of a verb, one can conjugate almost all French verbs. However, a handful of verbs, including être, are highly irregular and the seven principal parts are not sufficient to conjugate the verb fully.

German verbs are conjugated depending on their use: as in English, they are modified depending on the persons (identity) and number of the subject of a sentence, as well as depending on the tense and mood.

Bulgarian verbs are the most complicated part of Bulgarian grammar, especially when compared with other Slavic languages. Bulgarian verbs are inflected for person, number and sometimes gender. They also have lexical aspect, voice, nine tenses, three moods, four evidentials and six non-finite verbal forms. Because the subject of the verb can be inferred from the verb ending, it is often omitted. As there is no infinitive in contemporary Bulgarian, the basic form of a verb is its present simple tense first person singular form.

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.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aromanian language</span> Romance language of the Balkans

The Aromanian language, also known as Vlach or Macedo-Romanian, is an Eastern Romance language, similar to Megleno-Romanian, Istro-Romanian and Romanian, spoken in Southeastern Europe. Its speakers are called Aromanians or Vlachs.

Tense–aspect–mood or tense–modality–aspect is a group of grammatical categories that are important to understanding spoken or written content, and which are marked in different ways by different languages.

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:

The Maramureș dialect is one of the dialects of the Romanian language (Daco-Romanian). Its geographic distribution covers approximately the historical region of Maramureș, now split between Romania and Ukraine.

The conjugation of Sardinian verbs are mainly divided according to infinitives into -are, -ere, and -ire verbs in north-central dialects for regular verbs, similar to the tripartite systems of Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian. In southern dialects, these infinitives above change to -ai, -i, and -iri, respectively. Irregular verbs also exist as well. Many Sardinian conjugated forms were similar and conservative phonologically to Classical Latin, although the number of tenses were greatly reduced and the remaining tenses rely on periphrasis.

References

↑ Cojocaru 2003, p. 115.
↑ Pană Dindelegan 2019, p. 30.

Bibliography

Cojocaru, Dana. (2003). Romanian grammar. SEELRC.
Pană Dindelegan, Gabriela (2019). Gramatica limbii române pentru gimnaziu. Univers Enciclopedic.
(in Romanian) Maria Iliescu et al., Vocabularul minimal al limbii române, Editura Didactică și Pedagogică, 1981
(in Romanian) Valeria Guțu Romalo et al., Gramatica limbii române, Editura Academiei Române, 2005

External links

Romanian Reference Grammar with a good section on verbs, by Dana Cojocaru, University of Bucharest (183 pages) – 4.6 MB – pdf
Most common Romanian verbs conjugated also with pronunciation and exercises
Verbix.com: Romanian verbs conjugation (Attention: Generally good output, but a few verbs are not conjugated correctly.)
DEX online: allows you to look up words in a series of prestigious dictionaries of Romanian; contains a conjugator.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[2] In contemporary Romanian there is a tendency towards replacing o să with or să for the third person plural.See Gramatica limbii române, vol. I, p. 441.

[FOOTNOTECojocaru2003115-1] Cojocaru 2003, p. 115.

[FOOTNOTEPană_Dindelegan201930-3] Pană Dindelegan 2019, p. 30.

[1]

[nb 1]

[2]