The chapter of the imperfect subjunctive. Capitulum XXVII gave you a new mood and its first tense; this one gives you the second, and it is the easiest thing in all of Latin — so much so that the chapter's real work is not making the form, but knowing when it is used.
The irregulars confirm the rule without exception: essem, īrem, vellem, nōllem, possem, ferrem and māllem are all built on their -re form.
1. The rule, and there is only one
Take the verb's base form — the one ending in -re — and add the ending. Nothing is cut away, nothing is altered.
| active | passive | |
|---|---|---|
| 1st sg. | vītārem | vītārer |
| 2nd sg. | vītārēs | vītārēris |
| 3rd sg. | vītāret | vītārētur |
| 1st pl. | vītārēmus | vītārēmur |
| 2nd pl. | vītārētis | vītārēminī |
| 3rd pl. | vītārent | vītārentur |
The four families of verbs behave exactly alike, because it is their base form that carries the vowel:
vītāre → vītārem · tacēre → tacērem · scrībere → scrīberem · audīre → audīrem · capere → caperem
And the irregular verbs escape nothing:
esse → essem, essēs, esset, essēmus, essētis, essent · īre → īrem · mālle → māllem
2. The contrast with the previous chapter
The present subjunctive was surprising: the first family gave up its ā (laudat, but laudet), and all the others took an a that came from nowhere (dūcit, but dūcat). The imperfect subjunctive never surprises. Compare:
| present | imperfect | |
|---|---|---|
| vītāre | vītet | vītāret |
| tacēre | taceat | tacēret |
| scrībere | scrībat | scrīberet |
| audīre | audiat | audīret |
| esse | sit | esset |
The mood's hardest tense is followed by its simplest.
3. It is not a past tense
This is the chapter's trap, and it unties itself only once.
Gubernātor imperat ut nauta perīculum vītet. The helmsman orders that the sailor avoid the danger.
Gubernātor imperāvit ut nauta perīculum vītāret. The helmsman ordered that the sailor avoid the danger.
The danger is avoided in neither sentence. What changed is the main clause: imperat has become imperāvit, and the subordinate followed. The imperfect subjunctive is the present subjunctive of a past narrative, nothing more.
Always look at the first verb before choosing the form of the second.
4. Where you meet it
Four uses, all of them already seen in the previous chapter with the other tense.
What is wanted to happen (imperāre, rogāre, ōrāre, persuādēre):
Prīnceps eum rogāvit ut fīliam suam suscitāret.
Purpose:
Ex vīllā fūgit ut amīcam suam vidēret.
Consequence, after tam, ita, tantus:
Timor tantus fuit ut nēmō attentus esset.
A reported question:
Nēmō rogāvit ubi essent illī quī in nāviculā fuerant.
5. Deponents: passive form, active sense
Verbs that have no active forms naturally take the passive endings, and keep their active meaning:
nāscī → nāscerētur (that he be born) · morī → morerētur (that he die) · loquī → loquerentur (that they speak)
Beware morerētur. The vowel opens to e before the -r-, as in caperētur: never “moriretur”.
6. mālle, the third verb of willing
After velle (cap. X) and nōlle (cap. XX), here is mālle, and the book gives the key: mālle = magis velle, to want more.
| mālō | mālumus | I would rather, we would rather |
| māvīs | māvultis | mā-vīs = magis vīs |
| māvult | mālunt |
The second term of the comparison follows quam, and stays in the base form:
Mori mālumus quam servīre. — We would rather die than be slaves.
mālle has no command form: one does not order somebody to prefer.
7. Four verbs, and the dative for all four
Latin sees in the complement of these verbs a recipient, not an object.
oboedīre (< ob + audīre, to listen facing someone): Mare ventīque eī oboediunt. servīre: Ego nēminī serviō. persuādēre: Mihi nēmō persuādēbit. impendēre (to hang over): Multa perīcula nautīs impendent.
8. The rest of the vocabulary, by families
What threatens, what saves: perīculum → perīculōsus; tūtus (= sine perīculō); salvus (= servātus) → salvāre; perīre; praedō; vorāgō; fretum.
Those who cannot: caecus (who cannot see), surdus (hear), mūtus (speak), claudus (walk). The book defines all four with the same formula.
The opposites the prefix in- makes: mortālis / immortālis.
Two diminutives, two suffixes: liber → libellus (the little book); nāvis → nāvicula (the small boat).
Two words not to confuse with what you already know:
- mundus, mundī m. “the world” is not mundus, munda, mundum “clean” (cap. XXI). No macron parts them, and they merge only in the masculine nominative singular.
- animus m. “mind, heart” is not anima f. “breath” (cap. X). The first stands against the body; the second is what escapes it.
A Greek neuter, the course's first: *phantasma, phantasmatis* — phantasmata, phantasmatum, phantasmatibus.
An adjective with a single ending: *cōnstāns, cōnstantis*, like pār (cap. XXIV). The stem is read off the genitive: cōnstantem, cōnstantī, cōnstantēs, cōnstantia, cōnstantium.
9. Two small words
utrum … an asks a two-branched question, and it is the full doublet of -ne … an:
Utrum homō an deus est?
velut compares without asserting (= tamquam, sīcut):
Mercātōrēs eum velut deum admīrātī sunt.
And habērī is not a new word: it is habēre in the passive, with a second sense the book gives in the margin — habērī = exīstimārī, to be held to be.
Ille deus māximus habētur. — He is held to be the greatest of the gods.
What this chapter does not yet do
The subjunctive has four tenses, and you know two. The perfect belongs to capitulum XXXII, the pluperfect to XXXIII. It is the only mood whose tenses the book spreads out like this: the indicative follows the order of its own.