Minimus

I understand that the six verb endings for the present tense are: o, s, t, mus, tis, nt. I am puzzled, however, why the vowel preceding these endings changes. Will you please explain the reason to me?

Turbidus from Tusculum

That is a great question! Do you have your “Minimus Secundus” book handy? Turn to page 22 and look at the explanation for infinitives. You’ll see that an infinitive ends in “re”, right? Well, look at the vowel that precedes the “re” in each infinitive. There are four choices:ā , ē, e, and ī. So, we have four verb “families” or “conjugations”. All the verbs in each family follow the same rules:


1 st Conjugation “ā re” canto, cantare		2 nd Conjugation “ē re” timeo, timere		3 rd Conjugation “ere” curro, currere		4 th Conjugation“ ī re” & 3 rd Conjugation “ ī o” verbs dormio, dormire; facio, facere
canto	I sing	timeo	I fear	curro	I run	dormio	I sleep
cantas	you sing	times	you fear	curris	you run	dormis	you sleep
cantat	he or she sings	timet	he or she fears	currit	he or she runs	dormit	he or she sleeps
cantamus	we sing	timemus	we fear	currimus	we run	dormimus	we sleep
cantatis	you sing	timent	you fear	curritis	you run	dormitis	you sleep
cantant	they sing	timent	they fear	currunt	they run	dormiunt	they sleep

So, Turbidus, you can see the pattern here for each conjugation. In the back of your “Minimus Secundus” book is a glossary. You’ll see there that each verb is listed with its first person, singular, active, present tense form and its infinitive. That information, added to what I explained above, will enable you to conjugate all the regular verbs. We’ll address those “irregular” verbs another day! bona fortuna!