VERBS: 5 CHARACTERISTICS
Verbs have Five Characteristics: Voice, Tense, Mood, Person, and Number
Person= who is the subject, i.e., who performs the action.
1st person = the speaker(s) [I, we]
2nd person = the person spoken to [ you]
3rd person =the person spoken about [he, she, it, they]
Number: How many subjects, singular or plural
Tense: The time of the action. There are six tenses in Latin:
Present, future, imperfect, perfect (or present perfect), future
perfect , pluperfect (or past perfect).
Mood: The manner of indicating the action or state of being of the verb,
- indicative mood (which indicates facts)
- imperative mood (which orders actions)
- subjunctive mood (for hypothetical or potential actions).
Voice: An indicative with transitive verbs (those that can take direct objects).
Active Voice, Present Tense, Indicative Mood, Person (shown) Singular Number
1st person -o or -m, implies 'I'
2nd person -s implies 'you'
3rd person -t implies: 'he', 'she', or 'it'
Active Present Indicative Mood, Person (shown), Plural Number
1st person -mus implies 'we'
2nd person -tis implies '(all of)you'
3rd person -nt implies 'they'
ACCENTS
Accents are not ordinarily included when writing in Latin; in this handbook, accents are provided as an aid to pronunciation. In a word of two syllables the accent always falls on the first syllable.
VOWEL LENGTH
"A syllable is long by nature if it contains a long vowel or a diphthong; a syllable is
long by position if it contains a short vowel followed by two or more consonant or
by x, which is a double consonant. Otherwise a syllable is short".