Latin Verb Endings: Why amo Is a Complete Sentence
is a complete Latin sentence. One word, two syllables, subject and verb both present. It means I love.
That is the fact this whole article exists to explain, and it changes how Latin reads.
The six endings
Latin verbs end with a syllable naming who is doing the acting:
| Ending | Person | Example | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
-o | I | dico | I say |
-s | you (one) | dicis | you say |
-t | he, she, it | dicit | he says |
-mus | we | dicimus | we say |
-tis | you (more than one) | dicitis | you say |
-nt | they | dicunt | they say |
Six endings. They run through essentially every tense in the language with only small adjustments, so this is the highest-return table in Latin.
Why there are no pronouns
Because the ending already did that job.
. - I say.
. - We say.
. - They say.
(I), (you) and (we) all exist, and you have met them in this course at ranks 25, 31 and 45. But a Roman used them for contrast, not for basic information:
dico, taces.
I am speaking, you are keeping quiet.
Dropping them in by default is the clearest sign of a beginner's Latin. If you would not stress the word in English, leave it out in Latin.
Spanish and Italian inherited this behaviour directly. Hablo is a complete sentence for the same reason is. French did not keep it, because its verb endings eroded until parle, parles and parlent all sound identical, and once the ending stopped distinguishing anything the pronoun became compulsory.
Why this course cites verbs as
You will have noticed that the verbs in this course look odd if you are used to to say as a dictionary form. , , , , , video, , are all first person singular: I am, I say, I have.
That is the universal convention in Latin reference works, and it is deliberate here rather than an oversight. Every Latin dictionary, grammar and school text you open will list , , amavi, amatum in that order, and the first slot is the one used as the headword. Following the convention means the vocabulary you learn here matches every other Latin resource you will ever use.
It is also genuinely more informative. tells you the stem is am-; tells you the same thing but hides which conjugation family you are in more often than you would like.
The four conjugations
Latin verbs come in four families, and the difference between them is the vowel before the ending, not the endings themselves:
| Family | Marker | Example (I / he / we) |
|---|---|---|
| First | -a- | amo, amat, amamus |
| Second | -e- | habeo, habet, habemus |
| Third | short | dico, dicit, dicimus |
| Fourth | -i- | audio, audit, audimus |
Look down the columns. -t and -mus are in every single row. That is the point: the conjugations change the connecting vowel, and the personal endings are constant. Beginners are told there are four conjugations and hear four times the work; there is really one set of endings and four vowels.
Of the verbs in this course, and are second conjugation, and third, fourth.
The verb to be is irregular in Latin, as it is in almost every language, and it is rank 5 here because Latin cannot get through a paragraph without it:
| Person | Form | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| I | I am | |
| you | you are | |
| he, she, it | he is | |
| we | we are | |
| you (pl) | you are | |
| they | they are |
Even here, look at the plural: su-mus, -tis, su-nt. The regular endings are all present and correct. What is irregular is the stem flickering between su- and -, not the personal endings. That pattern holds for (, , , , , ) too, which is pot- plus welded together.
So the endings you learned in the first table survive contact with the irregular verbs. Very little in Latin actually escapes them.
Reading practice
Every one of these is built from this course's own vocabulary. Cover the right column.
. - We say.
. - I cannot.
. - God exists.
. - You see and you do not believe.
, . - I answer, but they do not listen.
Notice how much of that is carried by endings alone. Five sentences, and the only word doing pronoun duty is none of them.
What to take away
-o,-s,-t,-mus,-tis,-nt: I, you, he, we, you, they.- The ending names the subject, so the pronoun is normally absent.
- A pronoun that is present is there for emphasis. Read it that way.
- The four conjugations change the vowel, not the endings.
is irregular in the stem and regular in the endings, which is the general shape of Latin irregularity.
Next: the noun declensions, and how to tell which endings a given noun is going to use.