01/05/93



                             CHAPTER 12

        "Perfect System Active of All Verbs; Principal Parts"


VERBS: PRINCIPAL PARTS

Let's pretend you're native French speakers learning English and
you want to look up the English equivalent of the French verbs
"voir", "avoir", "prendre", and "regarder".  Turn to your
French-English dictionary and you find this:

      voir:     "to see",       pret. "saw",   pt. "seen"
     avoir:     "to have",      pret. "had",   pt. "had"
   prendre:     "to take",      pret. "took",  pt. "taken"
  regarder:     "to look"

What's all this about?  Why are there three entries for the first
three verbs?  Wouldn't it have been enough for the dictionary
just to have listed the infinitive "to see" for "voir", "to have"
for "avoir", etc.?  Of course not; and why not?  Consider our
verb "to see"?  What tenses of the verb are formed from the stem
indicated in the infinitive "to see?"  Let's list a few.

          Present Simple:            "I see"
      Present Progressive:           "I am seeing"
         Present Emphatic:           "I do see"
               Imperative:           "See"
            Future Simple:           "I will see"
       Future Progressive:           "I will be seeing"
                Imperfect:           "I was seeing"
      Present Conditional:           "I may see"

You can see that if you know a few basic tricks, you can use the
infinitive form "to see" as the basis for several tenses and
moods in English.  "To see" provides the raw material.  But there
are tenses English uses that are not formed from the infinitive
"to see".  How about the preterit (the simple past tense)?  Can
you form the simple past from "to see"?  No, English uses another
form of the verb to form this tense, and unless you know what
that form is, you can't use the verb "to see" in the preterit
tense.  Therefore, the dictionary must give you the form English
uses: "saw".  So the second entry in the dictionary for the
English verb "to see" is the preterit form.  Look at the second
entries for "to have" and "to take".  Their preterits are "had"
and "took".  Do we get any other tenses from this form of the
verb?  No, just one: the preterit tense.

     Look at the third entry, "seen".  For what tenses, voices
and moods does English use this form?  A lot of them.  Here are
some:

          Present Passive:           "I am seen"
           Perfect Active:           "I have seen"
        Pluperfect Active:           "I had seen"
          Perfect Passive:           "I have been seen"
    Future Perfect Active:           "I will have seen"
   Future Perfect Passive:           "I will have been seen"
         Past Conditional:           "I might have seen"

With the three forms given in the dictionary, you have all the
raw material from which you can build every possible tense, mood,
voice and number of the verb "to see".  Therefore, to know an
English verb thoroughly, and to be able to use it in all its
possible applications, you must know all three of its basic
forms.  Once you know them, you simply apply the rules for the
formation of the different tenses, voices, and moods.  We call
these three forms the principal parts of the verb.  English verbs
have three principal parts: the infinitive, the preterit, and the
perfect participle.

     Fine, now look at the verb "to look".  Why aren't there two
more principal parts listed after the infinitive?  Well, what are
the next two principal parts?  The verb goes: "to look",
"looked", and "looked".  As you can see, the second and third
principal parts are derivable from the first principal part: you
simply add "-ed" to the "look".  There are hundreds of verbs in
English that work this way.  Their second and third principal
parts are simply the first principal part with the suffix "-ed".
Verbs which operate like this are called "regular" (or weak).  If
a verb is regular, you don't need to be given the second and
third entries separately.  That is, once you know the first
principal part, you know the next two, and thus have all the
basic material you need to form all the possible tenses, moods
and voices of the verb.  On the other hand, verbs whose principal
parts are not readily derivable from the first principal part are
called "irregular" (or strong) verbs.

     So what have I convinced you of so far?  All possible
tenses, voices and moods of an English verb are reducible to
three different principal parts.  If a verb is irregular
(strong), you must learn the principal parts by memory, but if it
is regular (weak), you can easily derive the second two principal
parts from the first.

     I'll go even further.  The verb systems of all languages
operate this way.  To work with the verb, to know it completely,
you must know its principal parts.  Then you have to know what to
do with them; you have to know the rules and the laws of the
grammar of the language.  But first you have to have the basic
materials laid out in front of you, and that means knowing the
principal parts of the verb you're working with.


LATIN VERBS: PRINCIPAL PARTS

Latin verbs have three principal parts (three different stems),
but by convention we say that they have four.  Up to this
chapter, I've been misleading you slightly by calling the basic
verb form of the present and future tenses the "stem".  That was
justifiable when, so far as you knew, there was only one stem for
verbs.  But now you must realize that the word "stem" is no
longer limited to just one possible part of the verb.  The stem
with which you are so familiar is really only the first principal
part.  Let's look again at the first principal part.

     What tenses do we get from the first principal part?  You
know two of them already.  The first principal part is the stem
from which Latin forms the present, future, and the imperfect
tenses (you haven't had the imperfect tense yet, except in the
verb "sum" and "possum").  And remember, you use the infinitive
-- the second principal part -- to tell you what the stem of the
first principal part is.  Here are the formulae for the present
and future tenses.

PRESENT:   first principal part            +  no tense sign+
personal endings
FUTURE:    first principal part            +  tense sign+personal
endings

Take a couple of minutes to review these forms.  Write out the
present and future tenses, and then the imperative mood, of the
paradigms of the four conjugations (including the third i-stem
verb):

     I           II            III         III i         IV

laudo, -are  moneo, -ere   duco, -ere   capio, -ere  audio, -ire

                            PRESENT TENSE

__________   __________    __________   __________   __________

__________   __________    __________   __________   __________

__________   __________    __________   __________   __________


__________   __________    __________   __________   __________

__________   __________    __________   __________   __________

__________   __________    __________   __________   __________

                            FUTURE TENSE

__________   __________    __________   __________   __________

__________   __________    __________   __________   __________

__________   __________    __________   __________   __________


__________   __________    __________   __________   __________

__________   __________    __________   __________   __________

__________   __________    __________   __________   __________

                             IMPERATIVES

__________   __________    __________   __________   __________

__________   __________    __________   __________   __________


     This, then, is the big picture of the sum total of your
knowledge of Latin verbs.  All the tenses and moods you know are
based on the first principal part of the verb -- the first entry
you see in the dictionary.  As I said before, there is one other
tense based on this stem, the imperfect, and you'll be getting it
soon enough.  For reasons which you needn't worry about yet, we
call all the tenses derived from the first principal part of the
verb the tenses of the "present system".  So we say that the
first principal part is the root of the present system of the
Latin verbs.  Now on to some new territory.


THE PERFECT SYSTEM OF LATIN VERBS

As you saw, English verbs have three roots from which different
voices, moods and tenses are derived.  A Latin verb uses its
first principal part to form the present system: the present,
future, and imperfect tenses.  And this would have suited the
Romans just fine, if their language had had only three tenses,
but it has six (one less than English).  We divide the tenses
into two major systems: the present system (which you know), and
the perfect system (which you are about to learn).  The perfect
system uses the remaining two principal parts -- the third and
the fourth -- as its base.  For this chapter, we're going to be
concerned only with the tenses formed off the third principal
part.

I.   The perfect system is composed of three tenses: the perfect;
     the pluperfect, and the future perfect.

     A.    The perfect tense is used in Latin just as we use our
           preterit and our perfect tenses: "I saw" or "I have
           seen".
     B.    The pluperfect tense is used to talk about an action
           which has taken place before another action in the
           past.  In English, we use the preterit of the auxiliary
           verb "to have" with the past participle (the third
           principal part) of the verb:  "I had seen".  E.g.,
           "Before you came to the door, I had already seen your
           face through the window."
     C.    The future perfect tense is used to talk about an
           action which will have taken place before another event
           in the future.  In English we use the future of the
           auxiliary verb "to have" with the past participle of
           the verb:  "I will have seen".

     The perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect tenses in the
active voice only are formed from the third principal part.  The
perfect system passive, as you will see in a few chapters, uses
the fourth principal part, not the third.  Let's look first at
the perfect tense active.

     The perfect tense is formed exactly according to the formula
for the formation of the tenses you already know.  It's made up
of personal endings which are then added to a stem.  The
differences are (1) that the perfect tense uses the third
principal part in place of the first and (2) that the perfect
tense uses a different set of personal endings.   The personal
endings the perfect tense uses are:

                1st    -i         I
                2nd    -isti      you
                3rd    -it        he, she, it

                1st    -imus      we
                2nd    -istis     you
                3rd    -erunt     they

You can see how some of these endings resemble the endings used
in the present system, but they all must be memorized as entirely
discrete items.  They're actually very handy.  For example, if
you see a conjugated verb which ends in "-isti", "istis", or "-
erunt", you'll know right away that you've got a perfect tense
and that the stem which the ending is attached to is the third,
not the first, principal part.

     Okay, so where are we now?  To form the perfect tense, Latin
uses these perfect personal endings and puts them onto the third
principal part of the verb.  So let's have a look third principal
parts of verbs.

     This may sound like small consolation, but in the perfect
system, the distinctions between the different conjugations melt
away.  You undoubtedly remember all the differences between the
conjugations in the present system: each conjugation has a
different stem vowel and, what's even worse, the first and second
conjugations form their futures entirely differently from the
third and fourth conjugations.  But in the perfect system, once
you get to the verb's third and fourth principal parts, you
needn't worry any longer whether the verb is a first, second,
third, third-i, or fourth conjugation.  The fourth conjugation
will not form, say, its future perfect differently from the first
or second conjugations.  All the conjugations obey exactly the
same rules in the perfect system.  But getting to the third
principal part is the first thing you've got to think about.


THE FIRST CONJUGATION

Remember the verb "to look" in English?  "To look" is a regular
verb in English, which means that its second and third principal
parts are formed by adding "-ed" to the first principal part: "to
look", "looked", and "looked".  Because it's regular, the French
dictionary didn't list the second and third principal parts
separately.  Anybody with any business looking up English verbs
in the first place should at least know how regular verbs work.
It's only when the second and third principal parts aren't
regularly formed that they need to be listed.  The first
conjugation in Latin forms its principal parts by predictable and
regular modification of the first principal part.  Like this:

             I                    II                  III

           laudo                laudare              laudavi

Let's go slowly.  First off, the dictionary lists the first
principal part in the first person singular.  (There is a good
reason for this, as you'll see next semester.)  So you see
"laudo" instead of "lauda-".  To see the stem vowel, and hence to
see the conjugation, you must look to the second principal part,
where the stem vowel is revealed by dropping off the infinitive
ending "-re".  In the same way, the third principal is listed in
the dictionary in the first person singular perfect tense; that
is, with the "-i" of the first person singular.  To see the stem,
you must drop of the "-i".  So the true stem of the third
principal part is "laudav-".  As you can see from this example,
the third principal part of the verb "laudo" is just the stem of
the first principal part -- "lauda-" plus "v".  And all first
conjugation verbs form the third principal part in just this way.
First conjugation verbs are therefore "regular" in the system of
principal parts.  If you recognize a verb is first conjugation
from its first two dictionary entries, you now can derive the
third principal part on your own without having to be given it by
the dictionary.  Write out the second and third principal parts
of some of the first conjugation verbs you already know:

      I                  II                         III

     amo        ____________________       ____________________

     cogito     ____________________       ____________________

     tolero     ____________________       ____________________

     supero     ____________________       ____________________

As you can see, there's really nothing to this.  Once you know
that a verb is first conjugation, you can easily derive its
principal parts.  For this reason, a dictionary need tell you
only a verb is first conjugation, and from there you'll be able
to derive the other parts on your own.  It's the same as with
regular English verbs.  Given the first part, you know the other
two (provided that you remember your grammar!).  A Latin
dictionary tells you that a verb is first conjugation by simply
putting a (1) (or (I)) directly after the first entry.  For
example, "certo (1)".  This tells the verb is first conjugation,
and with that knowledge alone you know the rest of the principal
parts: "certare, certavi".

     Now let's put the third principal part to work.  And
remember, these are the rules which will govern the use of the
third principal parts of all the conjugations, first through
fourth.  Use the first conjugation verb "laudo (1)" as your
paradigm.


PERFECT TENSE

Remember that to form the perfect tense of a verb you use the
stem of the third principal part (what's left after you drop the
"-i") to which you add the perfect personal endings.

     3RD P.P.     +   PERS. END.     =     CONJUGATED FORM


1st  __________   +   __________     =  ____________________

2nd  __________   +   __________     =  ____________________

3rd  __________   +   __________     =  ____________________


1st  __________   +   __________     =  ____________________

2nd  __________   +   __________     =  ____________________

3rd  __________   +   __________     =  ____________________



PLUPERFECT TENSE

Another tense of the perfect system of tenses (tenses which use
the third and fourth principal parts of the verb) is the
pluperfect tense.  To form the pluperfect tense, you use the
imperfect tense of the verb "sum" for the personal endings which
then attach to the third principal part.

     3RD P.P.     +   PERS. END.     =     CONJUGATED FORM


1st  __________   +   __________     =  ____________________

2nd  __________   +   __________     =  ____________________

3rd  __________   +   __________     =  ____________________


1st  __________   +   __________     =  ____________________

2nd  __________   +   __________     =  ____________________

3rd  __________   +   __________     =  ____________________



FUTURE PERFECT TENSE

The future perfect uses the future of the verb "sum" as the
personal endings (with the exception of the third person plural
where it is "-erint" instead of the normal future form "-erunt".

     3RD P. P.    +   PERS. END.     =     CONJUGATED FORM

1st  __________   +   __________     =  ____________________

2nd  __________   +   __________     =  ____________________

3rd  __________   +   __________     =  ____________________


1st  __________   +   __________     =  ____________________

2nd  __________   +   __________     =  ____________________

3rd  __________   +   __________     =  ____________________


Simple.  And fairly logical, too.  The third principal part
already contains within it the notion of past tense.  To make it
even more past, you add the inflected forms of the imperfect of
the verb "sum" as the personal endings.  Thus the name: "plu"
(more) "perfect" (completed).  For the future perfect, you throw
the idea of a completed action into the future by adding the
inflected forms of the future of the verb "sum" as the personal
endings.  The exception in the third person plural is actually
fairly easy to account for.  You remember the future third person
plural of "sum" is "erunt".  But if Latin had used this form, and
not "erint", the third person plural future perfect would have
been dangerously close to the third person plural perfect:
"laudaverunt".

     Now you have it.  You know all the rules for forming the
entire perfect system active of any Latin verb.  Once you know
the third principal part, you simply apply these formulae and
away you go.  Let's trudge on now to the second conjugation
verbs.  There's a lot of regularity there too as far as the
formation of the third principal part goes.  But the ugly specter
of irregularity (and hence the need for rote memorization) starts
creeping in.


THE SECOND CONJUGATION

Many, very many, second conjugation verbs form their third
principal part regularly off the first principal part.  Like
this:

             I                    II                  III

           moneo                monere               monui
           doceo                docere               docui
           timeo                timere               timui
           terreo               terrere              terrui

If we look into this more closely, we can see that the third
principal of these verbs is formed simply by adding "-v-" to the
stem of the first principal part, just as it's done for first
conjugation verbs.  But when the "-v-" of the third principal
part comes up against the "-e-" of the stem of a second
conjugation verb, the result is one, solitary "-u-".  So for ther
verb "moneo", the third principal is "monevi" which becomes
"monui".  So also with many second conjugation verbs.  The third
principal part is formed regularly.

     Now, as I said, many second conjugation verbs form their
principal parts just this way, and if you remember this, you
won't be confronted with such a daunting list of forms to
memorize.  There is some order to it.  But there are enough verbs
differing from this regular pattern that you can't take for
granted that you can deduce the principals parts from the first
for every second conjugation verb.  The dictionary can't simply
put a (2) next to the first entry and leave it up to you to
derive the rest of the parts.  The dictionary must give you the
parts as separate entries.  Here are the second conjugation verbs
you've had so far.  You can see that the rules work fairly well,
but there are deviations.

           I             II              III

        debeo          debere           debui
        doceo          docere           docui
        habeo          habere           habui
        valeo          valere           valui
        video          videre           vidi
        remaneo        remanere         remansi

Let's consolidate our ground now by doing a few exercises.
Produce the following forms, and try to do it from memory at
first.

1.   They will have had.        ______________________________

2.   I had seen.                ______________________________

3.   You (pl.) remained.        ______________________________

4.   We will have called.       ______________________________

5.   She will be strong.        ______________________________

6.   You (s.) have tolerated.   ______________________________

7.   They had taught.           ______________________________

8.   You (pl.) had had.         ______________________________

9.   We have loved.             ______________________________

10.  They thought.              ______________________________


THE THIRD CONJUGATION (including the i-stems)

Now you have to batten down the hatches; all hell is about to
break loose.  The third conjugation is where irregularity is the
norm.  You must simply learn the principal parts of third
conjugation verbs outright, but, as I will try to show you,
reason isn't completely banished from the third conjugation.  Our
minds can get a toe-hold in here, too, and impose some order.
Some classifiable things happen to third conjugation verbs as
they form their principal parts.

A.   Reduplication of Initial Consonant

     Often the third principal part of a third conjugation will
     begin by doubling the initial consonant of the first
     principal part and putting an "-e-" or "-i-" in between the
     two of them:

        pello          pellere          pepuli
        disco          discere          didici
        do             dare             dedi

B.   The Aoristic (or Sigmatic) Perfect

     Many verbs add an "-s-" to the end of the first principal
     part to produce the third principal part.  Often the "-s-"
     is hidden in an "-x-" or another consonant which comes about
     from the collision between the "-s-" and the consonant at
     the end of the verb.

        mitto          mittere          misi
        dico           dicere           dixi
        scribo         scribere         scripsi
        vivo           vivere           vixi

C.   Change in the Medial Vowel and Loss of Stem Nasal

     Very often a vowel in the first principal part which is near
     the end of the verb will change in the third principal part:
     it will lengthen from a short to a long vowel; or it will
     grade, often from an original "-a-" to a long "-e-".
     Nasals, "-m-" or "-n-", in the first principal part may also
     be dropped in the third principal part.

        ago            agere            egi
        facio          facere           feci
        fugio          fugere           fugi
        vinco          vincere          vici


     By now you must be wondering why I'm troubling you will all
these patterns.  Isn't it enough to have to memorize the
principal parts without being burdened with all this?  Well, yes,
you are going to have to memorize the principal parts of the
verbs you're given in the vocabulary, that's true.  But, there
are more words out there in Latin than you can easily memorize
before you begin to read Latin.  For much of your reading, you're
going to have to rely not on pre-memorized vocabulary items, but
on your powers of deduction.  Suppose you see this form in your
text: "receperant".

     Okay, you recognize the "-erant" ending as the third person
plural pluperfect.  From this realization you can make another
deduction.  If you're in the perfect system, then the "-erant"
was attached to the third principal part of the verb, and you
know that the first entry in a dictionary is the first principal
part, not the third.  This could be a problem.  Can you look up
"been" in the dictionary in English?  No, of course not.  That's
because "been" is a principal part of "to be" and it'll be listed
under "to be".   So how are you going to look up "recep-"?
You'll never find it just like that in a dictionary.  You must
recreate the first principal part of the verb to look it up.
What are you going to do?

     Think a little.  What else can you deduce about this verb?
For one, it's not a first conjugation verb.  They all look like
"-av-" in the third principal part.  So you won't find it under
"recepo, -are".  It could be a second conjugation verb, even
though most of those have third principal parts ending in "-u-":
like "habui" and "docui" from "habeo" and "doceo".  Still, it
might be worth a shot; so you look up "recepeo", expecting to see
"recepere" and "recepi" listed as its principal parts after it.
(Don't forget, what you're looking for is a verb whose third
principal part is "recepi".)  But there is no "recepeo, -ere,
-cepi".  Then in bitter frustration you forget my stern warning
not to go browsing in the dictionary, and you look at all the
entries beginning with "recep-" hoping to find that third
principal part "recepi".  But you fail.

     Now you start thinking to yourself.  "Suppose this is a
third conjugation verb?   Sometimes strange things happen to
verbs as they go from the first to the third principal part.  Is
there any evidence of reduplication?  No.  Any hidden -s- sound
at the end that throwing off my search?  No.  Whats left?  Grote
once said something about the medial vowel changing, so Ill try
that.  I look up r-e-c-?-p-.  Because that -e- could have been
something else in the first principal part, Ill stay flexible on
it: the verb could be recap- or recip-."

     Leave yourself some intelligently limited flexibility.  Now
you find it, "recipio, -ere, -cepi".  You see, this works
sometimes.  That's why I showed you the major patterns of
variations.


FOURTH CONJUGATION

The formation of the third and fourth principal parts of a fourth
conjugation verb is quite straight forward.  There are enough
irregular forms to warrant separate listing in the dictionary --
they aren't all regular derivatives from the first principal part
as in the first conjugation -- but many verbs do have regular
principal parts.  Here are a few fourth conjugation verbs.

        sentio         sentire          sensi
        venio          venire           veni
        invenio        invenire         inveni
        audio          audire           audivi


MORE DRILLS

Try to memorize the third principal parts of the verbs in the
list Wheelock gives you on pages 55-6.  Here they are again in a
little more manageable form.  Fill in the blanks using the
vocabulary list on pp. 56-7, but try to do as much from memory as
possible.  Then you can use this list as a study sheet.  Cover up
the Latin, and try write out the complete entry for each verb.  A
complete entry now is all four principal parts.  You'll have to
do it several times for these forms to stick, but these verbs are
absolutely essential for the rest of your study, and a little
effort now will greatly simplify your work in the future.  You
must know these words and form from English to Latin.  (You don't
have to memorize the fourth principal parts yet.  You should just
know that they are out there.)

                   I                II                 III

to love     _______________   _______________   _________________

to think    _______________   _______________   _________________

to wander   _______________   _______________   _________________

to save     _______________   _______________   _________________

to overcome _______________   _______________   _________________

to endure   _______________   _______________   _________________

to call     _______________   _______________   _________________

ought       _______________   _______________   _________________

to teach    _______________   _______________   _________________

to have     _______________   _______________   _________________

to give     _______________   _______________   _________________

be strong   _______________   _______________   _________________

to see      _______________   _______________   _________________

to remain   _______________   _______________   _________________

to drive    _______________   _______________   _________________

to send     _______________   _______________   _________________

to write    _______________   _______________   _________________

to live     _______________   _______________   _________________

to feel     _______________   _______________   _________________

to come     _______________   _______________   _________________

to do       _______________   _______________   _________________

to conquer  _______________   _______________   _________________

to flee     _______________   _______________   _________________

to take     _______________   _______________   _________________

to lead     _______________   _______________   _________________

to be       _______________   _______________   _________________

to be able  _______________   _______________   _________________


TRANSLATE INTO LATIN

1.   "I came, I saw, I conquered (don't use supero (1))".


           __________________________________________

2.   I will have begun.         ___________________________________

3.   She had taught.            ___________________________________

4.   They lived.                ___________________________________

5.   We had.                    ___________________________________

6.   You (pl.) have written.    ___________________________________

7.   They sent.                 ___________________________________

8.   They have been.            ___________________________________

9.   We have found.             ___________________________________

10.  He had fled.               ___________________________________

11.  You couldn't see us.       ___________________________________

12.  You (s.) had seen.         ___________________________________

13.  They came.                 ___________________________________

14.  She remained.              ___________________________________

15.  We felt.                   ___________________________________


VOCABULARY PUZZLES

deus, -i (m)    The short "-e-" of the stem causes the word some
                grief in the plural:

                Nom. di (instead of dei)
                Gen. deorum
                Dat. dis (instead of deis)
                Acc. deos
                Abl. dis (instead of deis)

