Irregular Latin Perfects
What to do when verbs break the rules
Why does Latin never follow the rules? Today, I'm going to talk about irregular perfect verbs. They're really important, but they can be quite confusing. So I thought I'd do a whole post just on common, irregular, perfect verbs. Those verbs that change wildly in the perfect tense.
If you're not sure about perfect verbs as a whole, you can find my post about perfect tense verbs in the bambasbat archive, and make sure you download my free Latin Verbs complete reference guide by adding your email here.
Irregular Perfects
So there are two main types of irregular verbs in Latin.
The Rogue Perfects, the ones that go completely off-piste with their perfect tense
Verbs that have varied endings to what you'd expect.
There is some crossover between these groups, for example fero is in both. Don’t worry about this, we’ll go through them.
Rogue perfects
These include:
dedi which comes from do “I give”
egi, from ago “I drive, I act”
tuli from fero “I bring, I carry”
These are the ones that are really irregular from their present stem. But don't stress, because English has loads of irregular verbs:
sit/sat, stand/stood, run/ran, deal/dealt, speak/spoke, am/was, tell/told, bring/brought, see/saw
These are all examples of irregular perfect in English, so it's not weird that Latin does this. In fact, this is partially where English gets it from. So Latin is no different to any other language in this regard.
Spotting Irregular Perfects
Look at the third principle part. I know I harp on about this in every one of my posts about verbs, but your principle parts are so important to learn. In your dictionary you will get:
servo, servare, servavi, servatus
NB: You might not get that fourth principle part, hopefully you do in a good dictionary, but an earlier dictionary aimed at a lower level of Latin might just have the first three.
Hopefully it does have that third principle part, servavi, because that is your perfect stem. That is how your perfect is formed, and it tells you how it changes.
So servo is very regular. It does what you expect. It has its present stem and it has its perfect stem, which is quite similar, but might have a -v- added.
In terms of irregular perfect, textbooks are your friends. Irregular verbs still have principle parts. They are still shown in your dictionaries in the same way. So you might have:
fero, ferre, tuli, latus
This is my favourite verb in Latin because it is just so wild! It looks so different in the perfect to what it looks like in the present. You have to make it your best friend, otherwise you'll forget about it.
tuli is the perfect stem. It's in the same place as in the principle parts for regular Perfect verbs, and it means “to bring” or “to carry”.
eo, ire, ivi (ii), itum
This means “to go”. eo “I go”, ire “to go”. ivi is the perfect tense. “I went”. That's really irregular in English too. The thing with ivi is that it can also just be ii - without the -v- perfect signifier. I'll come to that later.
sum, esse, fui, futurus
That's the verb “to be”. The verb “to be” is irregular in almost all languages because it's used so much. And Latin's no different. sum means “I am”, fui “I was”.
The bold words in all these examples above are your perfect first person ending. Learn them. Make sure you know them. Make sure they don't surprise you when you see them in a passage.
Perfects with Varied Endings
Then there are those that have varied endings, so they change the pattern that we have learnt so far.
fero
malo
sum
volo
These are the verbs you need to know more naturally, as they can do unusual things in some person endings.
volo velle volui
This verb means “I want”. Its present tense changes quite a lot. It does still have the endings you expect, but they come in a slightly different way.
Present: volo, vis, vult, volumus, vultis, volunt.
The stem itself changes in some forms, so volo is one you need to learn.
Luckily, after that, it stays quite regular:
Imperfect: volebam volebas volebat volebamus volebatis volebant
That's what you expect for “I was wanting” etc. The same is true for the future:
Future: volam voles volet volemus voletis volent.
It goes like a third or fourth conjugation verb in the future with the A and the E.
The perfect follows the usual pattern. It uses the third principle part, volui I wanted and then follows the i isti it imus istis erunt. So even though it's technically irregular, it still follows the patterns you expect. You just have to be able to use your logical skills and use them in a slightly different way.
Perfect: volui, voluisti, voluit, voluimus, voluistis, voluit
As long as you know your principle parts, you should be fine.
Irregular Verbs in Compounds
volo also has some compound verbs. So for example, nolo means “I do not want”, and malo means “I prefer”, which has a similar meaning. These are based on the stem of volo.
The only slightly weird thing is that nolo has non vult in the present tense, “he does not want”, and non vis “you (s) do not want”. This is just an expansion of the negative you have for the other options (nolo = non volo). Other than that, it's exactly as you would expect.
fero, ferre, tuli, latus
I told you before, this is my favourite verb. It’s highly irregular in the stem changes, but also has unusual endings.
Present: fero, fers, fert, ferimus, fertis, ferunt
It just sounds ridiculous and I love it. This is the present tense. It again has the present endings that you expect, -o, -s, -t, -mus, -tis -nt, but it doesn't have the thematic vowel you expect in each person. The second person singular (fers), second person plural (fertis) and the third person singular (fert) have the person ending directly following the stem - no vowel is added.
They're not very common to see in the present tense, but don't forget them because they can come up in speech or legal cases. So they are important, but they're not super common.
The imperfect is much more common, but it's also very regular. It's exactly what you would expect from an imperfect tense.
Imperfect: ferebam, ferebas, ferebat, ferebamus, ferebatis, ferebant
The same for the future. It has the changed vowels of -a- and -e-, like a third or fourth conjugation verb:
Future: feram, feres, feret, feremus, ferets, ferent
Then the third principle part comes into play for the perfect:
Perfect: tuli, tulisti, tulit, tulimus, tulistis, tulerunt.
So although the stem changes, it's one of the rogue perfects that goes completely wild from the present stem, the endings are still regular. -i -isti -it -imus -istis -erunt. So although the present stem has weird endings, you don't have the thematic vowel, the perfect does exactly what you would expect.
Compounds of fero
fero means “I bring/carry/bear” and it has lots of compounds. For example:
aufero, auferre, abstuli, ablatus. “To take away, to carry off”
Although we have the prefix au- or abs-, it does exactly the same thing. It follows these patterns just with that prefix added on.
offero, offerre, obtuli, oblatus. “To offer, to present”
refero, referre, rettuli, relatus. “To bring back, to return”
So you might see compound verbs, and you have to be able to remember that they do the same thing in the third and fourth principle parts.
eo, ire, ivi, (ii), itus.
I told you I'd come back to this one. This means “I go”.
Present: eo, is, it, imus, itis, eunt
This is nice and simple, does what you'd expect.
Imperfect: ibam ibas ibat, ibamus, ibatis, ibant
The first letter has changed from the present stem, the eo, but like the rest of the present table, it just uses an i- as its first letter.
Future: ibo, ibis, ibit, ibimus, ibitis, ibunt
It uses the i- and then uses the common -bo, bis, bit endings.
Perfect: you'll see from the third principle parts (parts, plural!), it can be ivi which is kind of what you'd expect. It has i- for the stem, the -V-, which is the perfect signifier, and then the -i ending. But you don't always have to have the V. Some writers, especially later on syncopate [shorten] the verbs. So they just have ii meaning “he has gone, he went”.
ivi ivisti ivit ivimus ivistis iverunt /OR/ ii iisti iit imus istis ierunt.
Compounds of eo
exeo, exire, exivi, exitus: “I go from”
ineo, inire, inivi, initus: “I go into” and “I return”
redeo, redire, redivi, reditus: “I go back”.
Again these all follow the same pattern as eo. So once you've learned one, you effectively have learned all the ones that are compounded from eo.
sum, esse, fui, futurus
Now sum, “to be” is highly irregular. I've touched on it in this post a little bit, but if you want to have a really in-depth version, I have a whole post on it, just on its own.
You can find it here in the bambasbat archive.
Irregular but not Irrational
I hope this has been helpful for irregular Latin perfect verbs! If you are struggling with any Latin verbs, subscribe to receive my free Complete Verbs Reference Guide. It has all the endings for all tenses voices and moods of Latin verbs, so it's super useful just to have to hand as you're starting to do translations.
Thanks so much for joining me, and I'll see you next time on bambasbat.