Irregular, Defective, and Impersonal Verbs
Most Latin verbs slot into one of four conjugations and behave themselves. This hub is a tour of the ones that don't — the high-frequency misfits a reader actually meets in Cicero, Caesar, and Vergil.
Some are irregular: eō ("go"), dō ("give"), faciō / fīō ("make / be made"), edō ("eat") inflect with their own quirks but cover the full paradigm.
Others are defective: coepī, ōdī, meminī exist only in the perfect system yet mean present-tense things; inquam and ait exist only to introduce direct speech.
A third group is impersonal: licet, oportet, pluit, and the silent-subject passive pugnātum est live forever in the third singular.
The trap throughout is form vs. meaning — ōdī looks past, means "I hate"; pugnātur looks personal, means "there is fighting." Read the dictionary entry, not just the ending.
Three ways a Latin verb can refuse to fit the four conjugations — recognize which kind, then translate by meaning, not by form.
ōdī and meminī LOOK past but MEAN present. pugnātur LOOKS personal but MEANS "there is fighting." Form misleads — check the dictionary headword.
| Case | Indicative | Subjunctive |
|---|---|---|
| Pres. | eō, īs, it; īmus, ītis, eunt | eam, eās, eat; eāmus, eātis, eant |
| Impf. | ībam, ībās, ībat … | īrem, īrēs, īret … |
| Fut. | ībō, ībis, ībit … | — |
| Perf. | iī (īvī) | ierim |
| Plup. | ieram | īssem |
| Imper. | ī, īte | — |
| Infin. | īre; īsse; itūrus esse | — |
| Part. | iēns, gen. euntis; itūrus | gerundive: eundum |
| Case | Active | Passive |
|---|---|---|
| Pres. Indic. | dō, dās, dat; damus, datis, dant | —, daris (-re), datur; damur, daminī, dantur |
| Impf. | dabam … | dabar … |
| Fut. | dabō … | dabor … |
| Perf. | dedī … | datus sum |
| Pres. Subjv. | dem, dēs, det … | —, dēris, dētur … |
| Impf. Subjv. | darem | darer |
| Imper. | dā, date | dare, daminī |
| Case | Active (faciō) | Passive (fīō) |
|---|---|---|
| Pres. Indic. | faciō, facis, facit; facimus, facitis, faciunt | fīō, fīs, fit; [fīmus, fītis], fīunt |
| Impf. | faciēbam … | fīēbam … |
| Fut. | faciam, faciēs … | fīam, fīēs … |
| Perf. | fēcī (also faxō, faxim — old) | factus sum |
| Pres. Subjv. | faciam … | fīam … |
| Impf. Subjv. | facerem … | fierem (NOT fīerem) … |
| Imper. | fac, facite | [fī, fīte] — rare |
| Infin. | facere; fēcisse; factūrus esse | fierī; factus esse; factum īrī |
| Case | coepī ("begin") | ōdī ("hate") | meminī ("remember") |
|---|---|---|---|
| Perf. Indic. | coepī | ōdī | meminī |
| Plup. Indic. | coeperam | ōderam | memineram |
| Fut. Perf. | coeperō | ōderō | meminerō |
| Perf. Subjv. | coeperim | ōderim | meminerim |
| Plup. Subjv. | coepissem | ōdissem | meminissem |
| Imper. | — | — | mementō, mementōte |
| Infin. | coepisse; coeptūrus esse | ōdisse; ōsūrus esse | meminisse |
| Part. | coeptus, coeptūrus | ōsus, ōsūrus | — |
| Case | weather (pluit) | feeling (pudet) | clause/inf. (licet, oportet) | intrans. passive (pugnātur) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pres. Indic. | pluit | pudet (mē) | licet, oportet | pugnātur |
| Impf. Indic. | pluēbat | pudēbat | licēbat, oportēbat | pugnābātur |
| Fut. Indic. | pluet | pudēbit | licēbit, oportēbit | pugnābitur |
| Perf. Indic. | pluit | puduit / puditum est | licuit / licitum est, oportuit | pugnātum est |
| Pres. Subjv. | pluat | pudeat | liceat, oporteat | pugnētur |
| Infin. | pluere | pudēre | licēre, oportēre | pugnārī |
See It In Action
— Cic. Cat. i. 2
oportebat has no subject of its own — its "subject" is the whole infinitive phrase te ducī. Latin keeps the verb singular; English flips it into a personal construction ("you ought").
— Verg. Aen. i. 142
ait is one of the half-dozen surviving forms of âiō — a defective verb that exists almost entirely to attribute speech. Compare inquit (always inside a quotation) with ait (often before or after).
— B. G. i. 20. 1
coepī has no present system — for "he begins to beg" Caesar would write incipit obsecrāre. The perfect coepit fills in for past narration.
— B. G. i. 26. 1
pugnātum est literally means "it was fought" — Latin's way of describing a battle without naming the fighters. The impersonal passive of intransitives is everywhere in Caesar.
perfect form → English present; pluperfect → English imperfect; future-perfect → English future
meminī = "I remember"; memineram = "I remembered"; meminerō = "I will remember"
Latin acc. of person → English subject; the impersonal verb → English personal verb
paenitet mē errōris = "I regret my mistake" (NOT "it regrets me")
Latin infinitive or ut-clause = the real "subject"; English usually personal
licet tibi īre = "you may go"; accidit ut veniret = "it happened that he came"
Latin 3sg passive of intransitive → English active with vague subject ("they," "one," "there is …-ing")
ītur in silvam = "they go into the forest" / "into the forest one goes"
place the verb after a few words of the quote in English, mirroring Latin word order
"haec," inquit, "sunt vera" = "'these things,' he said, 'are true'"
Both look perfect by their endings, but ōdī, meminī, and coepī follow a different tense-meaning rule than ordinary perfects.
perfect form, PRESENT meaning
ōdī Catilīnam
I hate Catiline (right now)
perfect form, PAST meaning
vīdī Catilīnam
I saw Catiline (then)
Tip: Memorize the closed list: ōdī, meminī, nōvī, cōnsuēvī (and coepī, which is genuinely past). Everything else: perfect = past.
In Caesar's ita acriter pugnātum est, what is the subject of pugnātum est?
Study Tips
- •When a verb seems "missing tenses," check whether it's defective: coepī, ōdī, and meminī are perfect-only and translate as present, imperfect, future.
- •Whenever you see a stranded third-singular with no subject (licet, oportet, pugnātur, ventum est), think "impersonal" — the subject is an infinitive, a clause, or nothing at all.
- •Memorize the principal parts of eō, faciō/fīō, and dō as a block. They show up constantly in narrative prose and the irregular bits (ībam, fierī, dabō) are the parts that surprise students.
- •When a perfect or supine looks weird (cucurrī, tetigī, pepulī, momordī), suspect reduplication or a vowel-lengthened root rather than a typo — A&G's §211 catalog is the answer key.