Latin/Verbs Present 3 Lesson 4

Salvēte omnēs! Welcome back to Latin for Wikiversity. Here you can peruse a new lesson in Latin, in a simple format. If you would like to catch up, you can find a directory of lessons, a classified vocabulary list, and Memrise courses at the links on the right.

This lesson, we’ll dive into a form of verbs that do not exist in English: deponent verbs. These are verbs that are identical to passive voice verbs in form, but have an active meaning. Now, passive voice is not something I’ve introduced yet – it’s usually left until intermediate/second year Latin in most courses, and deponent verbs are introduced after passive voice. But the deponent verbs include some high-frequency verbs that you need if you are going to converse in Latin, so I think it makes sense to teach them here. Just be aware that the endings are going to look very different from our typical active-voice endings; however, you will start to notice the patterns after practicing them.

New Grammar
Deponent verbs: passive form, (more-or-less) active meaning. A typical verb in the present tense has the by-now familiar pattern of endings: o/m, s, t, mus, tis, nt. A deponent verb can occur in any of the four conjugations, and has these passive endings instead:

The vocabulary listing looks different, with only three principal parts. Many deponent verbs can take objects in the accusative, but some tend to use the ablative or dative instead.

Let’s look at the conjugation of the 1st conjugation deponent verb, cōnor = try:

Verbs from other conjugations use the same endings, with variations of the vowel connecting the stem to the ending that mostly match what you have seen in those conjugations already. Note that the 2nd person singular is e instead of the expected i in the 3rd conjugation – here’s a model for you:

Forgive us if this is a lot of confusing grammar all at once. We’ll keep the sentences fairly plain to try to make up for it. And when we do get to the passive voice, you’ll already know the forms!

Practice
Enough for this lesson; next time we will continue introducing verbs in the present tense; then moving onto the infinitive and the imperative and the imperfect after that. In any case, we’ll be dealing with verbs for a while! Bonam fortūnam!