In the twenty-third class of the Latin from Scratch course, we’ll study the imperfect past subjuntive in the active voice. It is probably the most frequent subjunctive tense, since it appears quite often in constructions with cum and ut.
I explain everything in the following video ():
Morphology of the Latin imperfect subjunctive
It is made up of the following parts:
- present stem
- linking ĕ (3rd and mixed conjugations)
- imperfect subjunctive morpheme rē
- active endings
A simpler way to put it would be:
- active present infinitive
- active endings
The result is the following table:
| 1st conjugation | 2nd conjugation | 3rd conjugation | mixed conjugation | 4th conjugation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| amarem amares amaret amaremus amaretis amarent | monerem moneres moneret moneremus moneretis monerent | ducerem duceres duceret duceremus duceretis ducerent | caperem caperes caperet caperemus caperetis caperent | audirem audires audiret audiremus audiretis audirent |
Imperfect subjunctive of the verb sum
According to the little trick we’ve just given, the imperfect subjunctive of the verb sum works exactly the same: on top of the infinitive esse we add directly the active endings.
essem
esses
esset
essemus
essetis
essent
That’s it! Quite easy, this tense. Now let’s continue with the next one.