To my mind, the third conjugation is where you have to start working at the verbs, just as the third declension is where nouns start to get tough. Some of the rules we learned for first and second conjugation verbs don't apply here, and some change just enough to be tricky. Hang in there, though, because once you learn the third conjugation, the fourth is a breeze, and then you'll know them all!
Verbs of the third conjugation are recognized by the -ere ending in the second principal part:
Note that this is not the same as the -ēre ending of the second principal part of the second conjugation. There, the ē was long; here it is short. This is one case where you have to pay attention to whether a vowel is long or short, at least while learning the verbs.
The trickiest part of the third conjugation is finding the present stem so we can form the present, imperfect, and future tenses. My two books give two different methods that result in two different stems. One says you get the stem the same way you do with the other conjugations: drop the -re from the second principal part, resulting in the stem rege-. The other book says you drop the -ō from the first principal part, resulting in the stem reg-.
Neither method is completely satisfactory, because if you use reg-, you have to remember when to insert a vowel between it and endings that would be impossible to pronounce, like reg-nt, and which vowel to use. If you use rege-, you have to remember that the -e- turns into a different vowel sometimes. I'm going to use the first method because I think it's slightly easier to follow, but keep in mind that some of these forms simply must be memorized, because there are no easy rules for creating them all.
So, to get the present stem, we'll drop the -ō from the first principal part, and conjugate as follows.
Adding the personal endings (-ō, -s, -t, -mus, -tis, -nt) to a stem that ends in a consonant would make some unpronounceable forms, so we insert a vowel between the stem and the ending to make it easier. The vowel is i except in the third person plural, where it is u. The -unt ending may be familiar enough from other forms to help memorize it. The first person singular doesn't need an additional vowel before the -ō ending.
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| First person | regō (I rule) | regimus (we rule) |
| Second person | regis (you rule) | regitis (y'all rule) |
| Third person | regit (he rules) | regunt (they rule) |
The only new thing here is that the imperfect tense-sign becomes -ēbā- instead of just -bā- as in the first two conjugations. As we've seen before, the final vowel gets shortened before the first person singular -m ending and both third person endings.
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| First person | regēbam (I was ruling) | regēbāmus |
| Second person | regēbās | regēbātis |
| Third person | regēbat | regēbant |
Instead of the -bi- tense-sign of the first two conjugations, here the tense-sign is -ē-, which is shortened in both third person forms and turned into -a- in the first person singular.
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| First person | regam (I will rule) | regēmus |
| Second person | regēs | regētis |
| Third person | reget | regent |
The third conjugation present active imperative is formed by adding -e to the stem for the singular and -ite for the plural:
After all that, you'll be glad to hear that the tenses of the perfect system are formed exactly like the first two conjugations: take the perfect stem by dropping the -ī ending of the third principal part, and add the proper endings.
Remember that the perfect tense has its own endings, (-ī, -istī, -it, -imus, -istis, -ērunt).
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| First person | rēxī (I ruled) | rēxīmus |
| Second person | rēxistī | rēxistis |
| Third person | rēxit | rēxerunt |
Tense-sign -erā-, normal personal endings.
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| First person | rēxeram (I had ruled) | rēxerāmus |
| Second person | rēxerās | rēxerātis |
| Third person | rēxerat | rēxerant |
Tense-sign -eri-, normal personal endings.
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| First person | rēxerō (I will have ruled) | rēxerimus |
| Second person | rēxeris | rēxeritis |
| Third person | rēxerit | rēxerint |
An appositive is a noun used to further describe another noun or pronoun. “The boy Marcus,” for example. The two must refer to the same object. (In other words, “space shuttle” is not an appositive, because “space” and “shuttle” are not the same thing.)
The appositive works in Latin much as it does in English, usually following the noun or pronoun it describes, and always having the same case.
When the subject is shown by the verb ending, a noun may be in apposition to it:
An appositive can also be used to suggest a time frame:
In this last case, context may be required to determine whether it means “when he was a boy” or simply “Marcus the boy.”
Ago has the basic meaning of “do,” and its uses in Latin are as varied as “do” in English. It has a basic sense of driving things forward, making things happen, so the best translation in English may vary depending on what is being done.
Gero is another word that has a long list of meanings, but the general sense is of bearing or carrying something forward, either literally in your hands or on your body, or figuratively as in waging war (carrying forward the war).
The prefix co- has two meanings: together and with force. So when it is added to a verb, as in the case of cōgō (co- plus agō), the new verb will have two different meanings. Drive things together: collect; drive forcibly: compel.
Note that the first conjugation verb dō, dare, dedī, datum moves to the third conjugation as -dō, -dere, -didī, -ditum when combined with a prefix, as in the case of trādō (trans + dō = give across, hand over, surrender).
Relinquo has a general sense of leaving something behind, but can often be translated in English simply as “leave.”
We learned that castra movēre is a common military idiom meaning “to break camp” (literally: to move camp). Two new ones are:
Find an English word related to each Latin word in the vocabulary.
This was a tough lesson, but some of these third conjugation verbs are very common, so we'll get plenty of practice with them. Verbs only get easier from here on.
Find an English word related to each Latin word in the vocabulary.