what does it mean to conjugate a verb?
If you lot are learning a new language, most probable you have to deal with verb conjugations. And so, what is a conjugation? And why are they important, anyway? In this post, I'll walk you lot through everything y'all demand to know.
What is a conjugation?
TO CONJUGATE
Outset, the nuts. When you lot conjugate a verb, that means that you list all its forms. Notation that nosotros simply cohabit verbs. Nouns, adjectives, and pronouns, on the other hand, are declined. (You tin read all about what a declension is here.)
We accept a lot to cover, but earlier we move on, I have a grammar joke for you. What did the verb say to the substantive?
"I'd ask you to cohabit, just you'd decline."
Get it? "Decline" can hateful both "list substantive forms" and "reject", and conjugate tin can have sexual undertones. Okay, okay, moving on.
CONJUGATION
Conjugation in a general sense is a blanket term for any and all changes that a verb undergoes. So, for instance, a student could complain that "verb conjugation in Latin is hard." Or a scholar might write a paper on the intricacies of Spanish conjugation.
But what is A conjugation? If your teacher tells you lot to write out the conjugation of a particular verb, what does southward/he mean?
There are actually two more specific definitions of conjugation.
- Conjugation = a list of all the forms of a specific verb (also chosen a verb paradigm)
- Conjugation = a category or group of verbs
Nosotros volition spend most of this post talking about definition #1, but we will also become to #two at the finish.
Definition #one: A conjugation is a list of verb forms
You take been conjugating verbs your whole life – you have just never stopped to think well-nigh it. For instance, let's look at the conjugation of the English verb "shout" in the present indicative agile. (If you don't know what those two concluding words meant, that'southward okay. We'll get to it!)
| PERSON | SINGULAR | PLURAL |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | I am shouting | we are shouting |
| 2 | you are shouting | you are shouting |
| 3 | he / she / it is shouting | they are shouting |
This nautical chart shows us that nosotros say "I am shouting", not "I is shouting". It tells the states to say "they are shouting", non "they am shouting". If you were learning English, this would be valuable information. It would help you lot to know how to speak correctly and brand yourself understood. As information technology is, you probably use the correct forms instinctively.
Presenting verb forms in such charts, or conjugations, is very useful as a learning aid. This is especially true for languages that have more variety in their verb endings than English.
At present that you have a vague idea of what a conjugation is, and what it looks like written out, it is time to discuss how we know what to put in a conjugation.
In the previous department, I said that conjugating a verb involves list all its forms. Simply y'all may be wondering, what do I fifty-fifty mean by verb forms?
I'm glad you asked. At that place are v chief properties that influence our verb charts, and nosotros will embrace them all in the next section.
Verbal properties that bear on conjugation
Each and every conjugated verb has a person, a number, a tense, a vocalism, and a mood. No exceptions. A verb'south course will depend on its value for each of these five grammatical properties.
PERSON
In English and virtually of the languages that you are likely to be learning, there are 3 grammatical persons: start, second, and 3rd. You accept probably come across these terms in the past. For instance, your literature teacher might have discussed the distinction between first person and 3rd person narrators in books.
- Offset person refers to the speaker: I or we.
- Second person refers to the addressee or the person spoken to: you.
- And 3rd person refers to everything else, that is, people and things spoken about: he, she, it, they, the true cat, houses, beauty, etc.
Why is this relevant for verbs? Well, verbal forms or endings often change based on the person. For instance, we saw up above that you say "I am shouting". We but employ "am" for the first person singular.
NUMBER
Verbs besides take number. The 2 well-nigh common grammatical numbers are atypical and plural. These mean exactly what you lot might think: singular number applies if you are dealing with one person or thing, and plural number applies if you take two or more than people or things.
And then, I is a first person atypical pronoun, whereas we is a first person plural pronoun. He and she are third person atypical pronouns, while they is a 3rd person plural pronoun.
Clearly number also affects our verb conjugation, since we say "I am", but "we are."
(If you're learning Latin, and then check out my ultimate guide to Latin person and number.)
TENSE
Our adjacent grammatical holding is tense. Tense refers to the time that the action of the verb occurred. Different languages have different tenses, but three common distinctions are present, past, and future.
Nowadays: I shout.
Past: I shouted.
Future: I will shout.
Tense is too important for conjugation, because we signal fourth dimension difference by changing the ending of the verb or adding a helping verb. So, we add together –ed in English to indicate activity in the past, and we add the helping verb will to indicate activeness in the future.
Some languages accept different verb endings for each person and number within each tense. And then the charts tin can get a fleck complicated.
VOICE
There are two main grammatical voices: active and passive. A verb is active if the subject performs the activity, while a verb is passive if the subject receives the action.
| ACTIVE | PASSIVE |
|---|---|
| he heard | he was heard |
| it is shouting | it is beingness shouted |
| the cats will eat | the cats will be eaten |
| nosotros were seeing | we were existence seen |
In the sentence "he heard", the subject ("he") performs the activeness of hearing. But if we say "he was heard", the subject ("he") isn't performing the action. Rather, someone else is hearing him. He is receiving the activeness of the verb.
Equally you tin can see from the examples, we can have active and passive vocalization in any tense, person, or number. Some languages (like Ancient Greek) as well have a center voice. The use depends a bit on the language, but usually it involves the discipline performing an activeness on him- or herself.
MOOD
Mood refers to how the activeness of the verb is viewed or conceptualized. Questions you tin can enquire yourself are: How does the activity relate to reality? Does the verb limited a fact, a control, a suggestion, or a possibility?
Here are a few examples of moods that we have in English.
- The indicative is used to draw facts or things that we view equally facts. It indicates what is going on in reality (or in what the speaker perceives to be reality). For example, in the judgement "The true cat sits on the fence", "sits" is in the indicative mood. Similarly, if yous say "The moon is made of dark-green cheese", "is fabricated" is in the indicative. It doesn't matter that this statement is false; it is still in the indicative, because it is stated as a fact.
- The imperative is used to give commands. "Run!", "Carry!", and "Don't drive!" are all orders, and thus they are in the imperative.
- The provisional is used to express possibility or potential. "I would eat dinner" has a conditional verb – "would eat". You aren't maxim that you will eat – that would be a statement of fact, and thus indicative. Rather, you are saying that you would eat (if some condition were to be met).
There are many other moods besides (for example, the subjunctive and the optative). For more about English specifically, you tin read this explanation about English moods.
This post just skims the surface of the topic. My goal is simply to requite you an idea of what a mood is and how it affects the verbal form. "I shout", "shout!", and "I would shout" (indicative, imperative, and conditional) plainly expect a fleck different. And so moods clearly influence conjugation.
Moods are highly language-specific and tend to be some of the most challenging and advanced grammer concepts. So if you are confused, that'south okay. Moods will make more sense with time, and for now, you tin can focus on the bones definition of a conjugation: a list of verb forms.
Examples of Conjugations in Dissimilar Languages
So far nosotros have learned ii things:
- a conjugation is a list of all the forms of a verb
- at that place are v verbal backdrop that affect conjugation: person, number, tense, voice, and mood
Every conjugated verb grade can exist fully described, or parsed , by listing its properties. So, "I shouted" is 1) first person, two) singular, 3) past, four) active, and 5) indicative.
If you were going to fully cohabit a verb, you would have to write out all its forms for every person, number, tense, voice, and mood. This could take a while! For instance, Latin has 3 persons, 2 numbers, vi tenses, 2 voices, and 2 fully conjugatable moods. That's 144 forms right there. Yikes!
Merely we can too conjugate verbs in specific tenses, and this is what you will see well-nigh ofttimes in textbooks. We simply specify that information technology is a conjugation in X tense, Y mood, and Z vocalisation. We always give all the persons and numbers, which means that more often than not we are looking at a chart with vi forms: first, second, and 3rd person in the singular and plural.
At present let's look at some quick examples from Castilian and Latin.
Castilian
In Castilian, verb endings change more than they exercise in English. They change to reverberate each person and number; in the paradigm below, I have highlighted the endings so you can see how the verb transforms.
Hither is the futurity indicative active of the verb bailar, "to dance". Note that we have our three persons and 2 numbers indicated, merely like in the English conjugation upwards above.
| PERSON | SINGULAR | PLURAL |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | bailaré I will dance | bailaremos we will dance |
| ii | bailarás you will trip the light fantastic toe | bailaréis you will trip the light fantastic toe |
| 3 | bailará he/she/it volition dance | bailarán they will dance |
We don't have to use pronouns with verbs in Castilian, because the verb catastrophe itself tells us if it is "I", "you", "he", etc. performing the action.
This is part of why conjugations are and so of import. These charts tell united states of america which ending signals which person, number, and tense – and this in turn allows united states to communicate and sympathize each other.
LATIN
Latin is another highly inflected language where verb endings vary immensely. Our example image is the pluperfect subjunctive active of the verb mittō, "I send." I have bolded the verb endings.
| PERSON | Singular | PLURAL |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | mīsissem I might have sent | mīsissēmus we might accept sent |
| 2 | mīsissēs you might have sent | mīsissētis you might have sent |
| 3 | mīsisset he/she/it might have sent | mīsissent they might have sent |
And in that location you go. Now you understand the showtime definition of "conjugation", and yous accept seen a few examples of such lists of verbs.
Of form, moving frontward you will need to learn about the conjugations in your chosen target linguistic communication. But now you know what a conjugation is, and that is a great showtime!
Definition #2: A conjugation is a category of verbs
Recollect how I said that in that location are 2 definitions of conjugation? Well, now it's fourth dimension to turn to that 2nd meaning.
A conjugation tin can also refer to a category or grouping of verbs. For instance, Latin has four verb conjugations: 1st, 2d, third, and quaternary. Verbs of the 1st conjugation all have the same endings, whereas 2nd conjugation verbs also accept their own unique endings, as practice 3rd and 4th conjugation verbs.
(Are you learning Latin? Then you will love my guide to finding the conjugation of any Latin verb.)
Dividing verbs upwardly into such groups is extremely helpful. Why? Well, it means that you lot only have to memorize the endings of 4 model verbs, rather than memorizing each and every verb's forms individually.
All languages have such classes of verbs, although all languages may not call them conjugations. For instance, Spanish verbs are divided into -ar verbs, –due eastr verbs, and -ir verbs. Castilian textbooks won't typically talk nigh first, 2nd, and third conjugation, but the principle is the same: -ar verbs are conjugated akin, every bit are -er verbs, and so on.
Final Thoughts on Verb Conjugation
This was a lot of material, then you may need to reread the post a few times. And, of course, this is only a full general introduction to conjugation. As you go on studying your target language, you volition delve deeper into specifics of that particular linguistic communication.
I take kept this mail service general, then that information technology can benefit students of many different languages, but each language has its own unique complexities. For instance, in some languages aspect and gender will impact verb conjugations. I wish you every joy as you lot observe the mysteries of your target language!
If you have whatever questions or thoughts, delight let me know in the comments.
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