4: Verbs - Conjugations
IN THIS LESSON
What is a conjugation?
Like how nouns are split into declensions, verbs are split into conjugations. Conjugations govern how a verb is formed, how it acts, and how it looks. Conjugations are the way that Oscan verbs are distinguished between tense, number, mood, voice, and function. All languages have conjugations—think about how we have all the ways to say “be” in English (was, had been, am, is, were, e.t.c.).
In Oscan, how a verb is conjugated is how its endings change. But beyond conjugations, Oscan is split into voices, tenses, and moods, similar to English and other Romance languages. Oscan has four conjugations, two voices (active and passive), five tenses (present, imperfect, future, future perfect, perfect), and three moods (indicative, subjunctive, imperative).
Five tenses may seem complicated as English only has three main tenses: present, past, and future. But it’s simpler than it looks. In Oscan, the present tense denotes an action happening in the present, the imperfect denotes an action that began in the past but continues to the present (typically translated with ‘was’ or ‘kept’), the perfect denotes an action that happened in the past and is now completed, the future denotes an action that will happen in the future, and the future perfect denotes an action that will be completed in the future. Here are some examples:
Present: I speak; Imperfect: I was speaking; Perfect: I spoke; Future: I will speak; Future Perfect: I will have spoken.
Moreover, Oscan has three moods. The indicative is used for simple statements. The imperative is used for commands. The subjunctive is used in a clear variety of ways such as to express purpose. The subjunctive may seem very foreign for an English speaker, but we’ll explain it deeper later in the course.
Along with these divisions, Oscan also has sequences. The primary sequence contains the present tense, the future tense, and future perfect indicative. The secondary sequence contains the imperfect tense, the perfect tense, and all the tenses of the subjunctive.
All of this is to say, there are lots of quirks about verbs and their endings, so let’s jump in!