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The present imperative mood is the normal tense used for giving direct orders which the speaker wishes to be carried out at once. The active form can be made plural by adding -te: dā mī bāsia mīlle, deinde centum! [1] 'give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred!' date dexterās fidemque! [2] 'give me your right hands and your oath!'
Thus all those Latin verbs which in the present tense have 1st singular -ō, 2nd singular -ās, and infinitive -āre are said to belong to the 1st conjugation, those with 1st singular -eō, 2nd singular -ēs and infinitive -ēre belong to the 2nd conjugation, and so on. The number of conjugations of regular verbs is usually said to be four.
Most Latin verbs are regular and follow one of the five patterns below. [45] These are referred to as the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th conjugation, according to whether the infinitive ends in -āre, -ēre, -ere or -īre. [46] (Verbs like capiō are regarded as variations of the 3rd conjugation, with some forms like those of the 4th conjugation.)
Latin word order is relatively free. The verb may be found at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of a sentence; an adjective may precede or follow its noun (vir bonus or bonus vir both mean 'a good man'); [5] and a genitive may precede or follow its noun ('the enemies' camp' can be both hostium castra and castra hostium; the latter is more common). [6]
The main Latin tenses can be divided into two groups: the present system (also known as infectum tenses), consisting of the present, future, and imperfect; and the perfect system (also known as perfectum tenses), consisting of the perfect, future perfect, and pluperfect.
Verbs in Interlingue have three endings: -ar, -er, and -ir. Conjugation is performed with a combination of endings and auxiliary verbs. The verb esser (to be) is exceptional in being written es in the present tense, though the esse form is seen in the imperative. [5]
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In old Latin, a form of the subjunctive with -s-, known as the sigmatic aorist subjunctive, is preserved (faxim, servāssim etc.). One use of this is for wishes for the future: [17] dī tē servāssint semper! (Plautus) [51] 'may the gods preserve you always!' deī faxint ut liceat! (Cicero) [52] 'may the gods ensure that it be allowed'