Conjugation of verbs

Latin Learning Latin
1

Consider the conjugation 2 moveō, movēre, mōvī, mōtum.

I’m confused by two things:

– Why is there no -u- in the perfect active? (mōvuī)
– What happend to the v in supine? (Why not mōvtum/mōvetum?)

I guess this is a pretty basic question and I think I’ve read somewhere in my books about this, but I can’t remember where. Is this assimilation or something? Could someone point me to what I’m missing and what I should read up on?

2

You have to learn the main parts of the verb because they vary so, as languages do vary.
Discendae sunt partes verborum principales quae varientur, ut sic solent omnes linguae.

3

I don’t think you have missed anything, I would say it is just natural phonological evolution :

  • movui, I find hard to pronounce it with two distinct -u- sounds
  • -i- tends to be lost before -t-, hence *movitum > *movtum, and it’s hard for the -v- to be heard distinctly before -t-

In each case the -v- coalesced with the preceding -o-, the result being -ō-.

4

I had this assignment in my study book, that I should write down the principal parts of moveo among other verbs I found hard to conjugate even when looking at conjugation tables at Wikipedia at the same time. But what you’re saying here is that verbs vary so much that it’s not always possible to conjugate them only by knowing the first person singular present active (moneo).

I think this is reasonable, but it seems that this course I’m taking is predominantly about studying declension and conjugation tables and not really doing much reading or trying to increase your vocabulary. Much like the opposite technique of what Ørberg, whose Lingua Latina I’m also reading, advocates.

5

Many principal parts are predictable, some are not. And learning the tables is good.
Plerumque non variant partes principales; aequales sunt. Nonnunquam sunt quaedam inaequales quae variant. Bonum etiam est tabulas conjugationum disci.