Latin/Verbs Present Tense Lesson 2

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Second conjugation verbs
Last lesson we studied 1st conjugation verbs, which have the letter A in the present tense conjugation and are marked by the –are ending of the infinitive (2nd principal part). This week we’ll look at verbs from the 2nd conjugation. These verbs are characterized by the letter E in the 1st and 2nd principal parts. The 2nd principal part, the infinitive, contains an ē (with a macron or accent mark): -ēre.

This is a time that it is important to emphasize the macrons, other than for pronounciation, because the infinitive form is the form you need for classification of verbs, and the macron over the ē is the only thing to distinguish 2nd from 3rd conjugation infinitives. Here are the 2nd conjugation verbs we’ve already used in previous lessons:

The 2nd principal part (infinitive) of 2nd conjugation verbs ends in –ēre. There is a somewhat typical pattern of endings for 4 principal parts, like habeō, habēre, habuī, habitus. (eō, ēre, uī, itus). But as you will see, not all verbs follow this pattern. The ones that do not have the forms written out, while the “typical” ones just have a 2 after them. The pattern for a present tense conjugation is as follows:

The E from the stem stays in all the forms of the present tense, including 1st person singular, where it is pronounced distinctly from the O (moneo is a 3-syllable word).

Practice
That’s enough for this lesson … next time we’ll look at 3rd conjugation verbs. Please feel free to ask questions or give comments below. We hope you are enjoying the course. Valēte!