Lesson 4.2: Personal Endings

What is a personal ending (not death!)?

In Oscan, the end of a verb changes depending on what person the verb is (who’s doing it) and whether it is a singular person or thing or more than one. By looking at the ending, you can decipher what’s happening, even without the noun!

For each verb’s person and number, there is a different general personal ending that will be found at the end of most forms. These endings are indications of the subject of the verb, the mood of the verb, and the number of the verb.

However, there are also two sets of endings depending on the sequence of a verb. The primary sequence contains the present, future, and future perfect indicative while the econdary sequence contains the imperfect and perfect indicative along with all subjunctives. Although the endings for primary and secondary sequence are similar, they are not exactly identical. Many of the endings in the singular are extant, while most of the plural general personal endings are missing.

Moreover, these endings gradually evolved over time. The endings of third-person plural, originally -ti and -nti, gradually dropped off the i. The ending -nt further became -nd, -n, and finally -ns, possible because of the similar -s ending in plural nouns. However, in words ending in -ent, the -n then drops off. The only exception is the word ‘sent.’

The only occurances of the secondary sequence first-person singular are in the words ‘manafum’ (Latin ‘mandavi’) and ‘sum'.’

The secondary sequence third-person singular ending -d was originally a -t. This is also seen in some early archaic Latin words.

Below are the charts for verb endings. These are near universal for all verbs, regardless of other endings on them, so pay attention to what’s happening!