THE PRESENT, IMPERFECT, AND FUTURE TENSES OF SUM
[119.] The inflection of a verb is called its conjugation (cf. [§ 23]). In English the verb has but few changes in form, the different meanings being expressed by the use of personal pronouns and auxiliaries, as, I am carried, we have carried, they shall have carried, etc. In Latin, on the other hand, instead of using personal pronouns and auxiliary verbs, the form changes with the meaning. In this way the Romans expressed differences in tense, mood, voice, person, and number.
[120.] The Tenses. The different forms of a verb referring to different times are called its tenses. The chief distinctions of time are present, past, and future:
| 1. The present, that is, what is happening now, or what usually happens, is expressed by | the Present Tense |
| 2. The past, that is, what was happening, used to happen, happened, has happened, or had happened, is expressed by | the Imperfect, Perfect, and Pluperfect Tenses |
| 3. The future, that is, what is going to happen, is expressed by | the Future and Future Perfect Tenses |
[121.] The Moods. Verbs have inflection of mood to indicate the manner in which they express action. The moods of the Latin verb are the indicative, subjunctive, imperative, and infinitive.
a. A verb is in the indicative mood when it makes a statement or asks a question about something assumed as a fact. All the verbs we have used thus far are in the present indicative.
[122.] The Persons. There are three persons, as in English. The first person is the person speaking (I sing); the second person the person spoken to (you sing); the third person the person spoken of (he sings). Instead of using personal pronouns for the different persons in the two numbers, singular and plural, the Latin verb uses the personal endings (cf. [§ 22 a]; [29]). We have already learned that -t is the ending of the third person singular in the active voice and -nt of the third person plural. The complete list of personal endings of the active voice is as follows:
| Singular | Plural | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st Pers. | I | -m or -ō | we | -mus |
| 2d Pers. | thou or you | -s | you | -tis |
| 3d Pers. | he, she, it | -t | they | -nt |
[123.] Most verbs form their moods and tenses after a regular plan and are called regular verbs. Verbs that depart from this plan are called irregular. The verb to be is irregular in Latin as in English. The present, imperfect, and future tenses of the indicative are inflected as follows:
| Present Indicative | ||
|---|---|---|
| SINGULAR | PLURAL | |
| 1st Pers. | su-m, I am | su-mus, we are |
| 2d Pers. | e-s, you1 are | es-tis, you1 are |
| 3d Pers. | es-t, he, she, or it is | su-nt, they are |
| Imperfect Indicative | ||
| 1st Pers. | er-a-m, I was | er-ā´-mus, we were |
| 2d Pers. | er-ā-s, you were | er-ā´-tis, you were |
| 3d Pers. | er-a-t, he, she, or it was | er-a-nt, they were |
| Future Indicative | ||
| 1st Pers. | er-ō, I shall be | er´-i-mus, we shall be |
| 2d Pers. | er-i-s, you will be | er´-i-tis, you will be |
| 3d Pers. | er-i-t, he will be | er-u-nt, they will be |