Linguam Latinam amo. Si res intelligentes amas, hanc linguam amabis. (I love the Latin language. If you like intelligent things, you will love this language.)
The reason that I love the language so much is that it has so much to it. There are four conjugations of (regular) verbs, each with their own set of 120 different forms (that my class has learned so far) that it can take.
This is the present active voice indicative of "amo, amare, amavi, amatus" (I love/like, to love/like, i loved/liked, having been loved/liked):
Singular: Plural:
Amo- I love | Amamus- We love
Amas- you love | Amatis- You (all) love
Amat- he loves | Amant- They love
That is just the conjugation chart for the present active voice indicative. Each of these is what I will refer to as a form for a verb. There is also a future, future perfect, perfect (past), pluperfect (past perfect), and imperfect (continuous past) tense that this verb can take in the indicative mood. Also in the indicative mood, there is the passive voice forms of these same tenses. In the subjunctive mood, there is no future or future perfect tense, but there are four tenses in both the active and passive. So there are six charts of six forms in the active voice indicative (36 forms), six charts of six forms in the passive voice indicative (36), four charts of six forms in the active voice subjunctive (24), and four charts of six forms in the passive voice subjunctive (24).
That means that there are 20 different charts like the one above that a single verb has.
Add that up and you get 120 forms for a single regular verb. Multiply that by four because of the four different conjugations, and then add in the irregular verbs that don't really follow a conjugation. (Luckily, the irregular verbs sometimes do not have a passive voice. And sometimes there are such things as deponent verbs that are formed as passive verbs but translate as active verbs) That is a lot of forms for verbs to take.
The subjunctive mood is the mood of wishful thinking, and the indicative mood is that of facts.
I do hope you get beyond the point I did (with Latin).
ReplyDeleteI think we had the 1st Gallations XI versus the Romans - no limit on overs, three day match.
Enjoy!
Yes! So somebody understood that! I was a little bit worried. (By that I mean that I was hoping for a comment like, "What the hell kind of crack are you on?") But it's all good. Damn, I would love to have a copy of the Vulgate Bible...
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