Grammatical conjugation

Not to be confused with grammatical conjunction.

Part of the conjugation of the Spanish verb correr, "to run", the lexeme is "corr-".
Red represents the speaker, purple the addressee and teal a third person.
One person represents the singular number and two, the plural number.
Dawn represents the past, noon the present and night the future.

In linguistics, conjugation (/ˌkɒndʒʊˈɡeɪʃən/) is the creation of derived forms of a verb from its principal parts by inflection (alteration of form according to rules of grammar). Conjugation may be affected by person, number, gender, tense, aspect, mood, voice, and/or other grammatical categories such as possession, definiteness, politeness, causativity, clusivity, transitivity, valency, polarity, telicity, volition, mirativity, evidentiality, pluractionality, agreement, polypersonal agreement, incorporation, noun class, noun classifiers, and verb classifiers in some languages. Typically the principal parts are the root and/or several modifications of it (stems). All the different forms of the same verb constitute a lexeme, and the canonical form of the verb that is conventionally used to represent that lexeme (as seen in dictionary entries) is called a lemma.

The term conjugation is applied only to the inflection of verbs, and not of other parts of speech (inflection of nouns and adjectives is known as declension). Also it is often restricted to denoting the formation of finite forms of a verb – these may be referred to as conjugated forms, as opposed to non-finite forms, such as the infinitive or gerund, which tend not to be marked for most of the grammatical categories.

Conjugation is also the traditional name for a group of verbs that share a similar conjugation pattern in a particular language (a verb class). For example, Latin is said to have four conjugations of verbs. This means that any regular Latin verb can be conjugated in any person, number, tense, mood, and voice by knowing which of the four conjugation groups it belongs to, and its principal parts. A verb that does not follow all of the standard conjugation patterns of the language is said to be an irregular verb. The system of all conjugated variants of a particular verb or class of verbs is called a verb paradigm; this may be presented in the form of a conjugation table.

Examples

Indo-European languages usually inflect verbs for several grammatical categories in complex paradigms, although some, like English, have simplified verb conjugation to a large extent. Below is the conjugation of the verb to be in the present tense (of the infinitive, if it exists, and indicative moods), in English, German, Yiddish, Dutch, Afrikaans, Icelandic, Faroese, Swedish, Norwegian, Latvian, Bulgarian, Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian, Polish, Slovenian, Macedonian, Urdu or Hindi, Persian, Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Albanian, Armenian, Irish, Ukrainian, Ancient Attic Greek and Modern Greek. This is usually the most irregular verb. The similarities in corresponding verb forms may be noticed. Some of the conjugations may be disused, like the English thou-form, or have additional meanings, like the English you-form, which can also stand for second person singular or be impersonal.

"To be" in several Indo-European languages

Branch	Language	Present infinitive	Present indicative
			Singular persons			Plural persons
			1st	2nd	3rd	1st	2nd	3rd
Germanic	English	be	am	are art1 be'st1	is	are
	German	sein	bin	bist	ist	sind	seid	sind
	Yiddish transliterated	זיין zein	בין bin	ביסט bist	איז iz	זענען zenen	זענט zent	זענען zenen
	Dutch	zijn	ben	bent zijt2	is	zijn	zijn zijt2	zijn
	Afrikaans	wees	is
	Icelandic	vera	er	ert	er	erum	eruð	eru
	Faroese	vera	eri	ert	er	eru
	Norwegian	være3 vera4 vere4	er
	Danish	være	er
	Swedish	vara	är
Italic	Latin	esse	sum	es	est	sumus	estis	sunt
	Italian	essere	sono	sei	è	siamo	siete	sono
	French	être	suis	es	est	sommes	êtes	sont
	Catalan	ser	sóc	ets	és	som	sou	són
	Spanish	ser	soy	eres	es	somos	sois	son
	Galician	ser	son	es	é	somos	sodes	son
	Portuguese	ser	sou	és	é	somos	sois	são
	Friulian	jessi	soi	sês	è	sin	sês	son
	Romanian	a fi	sunt	ești	este	suntem	sunteți	sunt
Celtic	Irish	bheith	bím	bíonn	bíonn	bímid	bíonn	bíonn
	Welsh (standard form)	bod	rydw	rwyt	mae	rydych	rydyn	maen
Greek	Ancient5 transliterated	εἶναι eînai	εἰμί eimí	εἶ eî	ἐστί estí	ἐσμέν esmén	ἐστέ esté	εἰσί eisí
	Modern transliterated	none6	είμαι eímai	είσαι eísai	είναι eínai	είμαστε eímaste	είσ(ασ)τε eís(as)te	είναι eínai
Albanian		me qenë	jam	je	është	jemi	jeni	janë
Armenian	Western transliterated	ըլլալ ĕllal	Եմ em	ես es	է ē	ենք enk‘	էք ēk‘	են en
	Eastern transliterated	լինել linel	Եմ em	ես es	է ē	ենք enk‘	եք ek‘	են en
Slavic	Czech	být	jsem	jsi	je	jsme	jste	jsou
	Slovak	byť	som	si	je	sme	ste	sú
	Polish	być	jestem	jesteś	jest	jesteśmy	jesteście	są
	Russian transliterated	быть byt	есть yest'
	Ukrainian transliterated	бути buty	є ye
	Serbian strong transliterated	бити biti	јесам jesam	јеси jesi	јест(е) jest(e)	јесмо jesmo	јесте jeste	јесу jesu
	Serbian clitic transliterated	none	сам sam	си si	је je	смо smo	сте ste	су su
	Croatian strong	biti	jesam	jesi	jest	jesmo	jeste	jesu
	Croatian clitic	none	sam	si	je	smo	ste	su
	Slovenian	biti	sem	si	je	smo	ste	so
	Bulgarian transliterated	none	съм săm	си si	е e	сме sme	сте ste	са să
	Macedonian transliterated	none	сум sum	си si	е e	сме sme	сте ste	се se
Baltic	Latvian	būt	esmu	esi	ir	esam	esat	ir
	Lithuanian	būti	esu	esi	yra	esame	esate	yra
Indo-Iranian	Persian transliterated	بودن budan	ام æm	ای ei	(است (ا æst (æ)9	ایم eem	(اید (این eed (spoken: een)	(اند (ان and (spoken: an)
	Sanskrit transliterated	अस्ति asti	अस्मि asmi	असि asi	अस्ति asti	स्मः smah	स्थ stha	सन्ति santi
	Hindustani Devanagari Script Perso-Arabic Script transliterated	होना ہونا hona	हूँ ہوں hū̃	है ہیں hai	है ہے hai	हैं ہیں hãĩ	हो ہو ho	हैं ہیں hãĩ
	Marathi transliterated	असणे asṇe	आहे āhe	आहेस āhes	आहे āhe	आहोत āhot	आहात āhāt	आहेत āhet
	Gujarati transliterated	હોવું hovũ	છું chhũ	છે chhe		છીએ chhīe	છો chho	છે chhe

¹ Archaic, poetical; used only with the pronoun 'thou'.

² In Flemish dialects.

³ In the bokmål written standard.

⁴ In the nynorsk written standard. vera and vere are both alternate forms.

⁵ Attic.

⁶ 'eínai' is only used as a noun ("being, existence").

⁷ Ptc: qenë.

⁸ In the Tosk and Geg dialects, respectively.

⁹ Existential: هست (hæst) has another meaning. Usage of (æ) is considered to be rural, now. See, Indo-European copula

Verbal agreement

Verbal agreement or concord is a morpho-syntactic construct in which properties of the subject and/or objects of a verb are indicated by the verb form. Verbs are then said to agree with their subjects (resp. objects).

Many English verbs exhibit subject agreement of the following sort: whereas I go, you go, we go, they go are all grammatical in standard English, she go is not (except in the subjunctive, as "They requested that she go with them"). Instead, a special form of the verb to go has to be used to produce she goes. On the other hand I goes, you goes etc. are not grammatical in standard English. (Things are different in some English dialects that lack agreement.) A few English verbs have no special forms that indicate subject agreement (I may, you may, she may), and the verb to be has an additional form am that can only be used with the pronoun I as the subject.

Verbs in written French exhibit more intensive agreement morphology than English verbs: je suis (I am), tu es ("you are", singular informal), elle est (she is), nous sommes (we are), vous êtes ("you are", plural), ils sont (they are). Historically, English used to have a similar verbal paradigm. Some historic verb forms are used by Shakespeare as slightly archaic or more formal variants (I do, thou dost, she doth, typically used by nobility) of the modern forms.

Some languages with verbal agreement can leave certain subjects implicit when the subject is fully determined by the verb form. In Spanish, for instance, subject pronouns do not need to be explicitly present, even though in French, its close relative, they are obligatory. The Spanish equivalent to the French je suis (I am) can be simply soy (lit. "am"). The pronoun yo (I) in the explicit form yo soy is only required for emphasis or to clear ambiguity in complex texts.

Some languages have a richer agreement system in which verbs also agree with some or all of their objects. Ubykh exhibits verbal agreement for the subject, direct object, indirect object, benefaction and ablative objects (a.w3.s.xe.n.t'u.n, you gave it to him for me).

Basque can show agreement not only for subject, direct object and indirect object, but it also on occasion exhibits agreement for the listener as the implicit benefactor: autoa ekarri digute means "they brought us the car" (neuter agreement for listener), but autoa ekarri ziguten means "they brought us the car" (agreement for feminine singular listener).

Languages with a rich agreement morphology facilitate relatively free word order without leading to increased ambiguity. The canonical word order in Basque is subject–object–verb. However, all permutations of subject, verb and object are permitted.

Nonverbal person agreement

In some languages, predicative adjectives and copular complements receive a form of person agreement that is distinct from that used on ordinary predicative verbs. Although this is a form of conjugation in that it refers back to the person of the subject, it is not “verbal” because it always derives from pronouns that have become cliticised to the nouns to which they refer. An example of nonverbal person agreement, along with contrasting verbal conjugation, can be found from Beja (person agreement affixes in bold):

• wun.tu.wi, “you (fem.) are big”
• hadá.b.wa, “you (masc.) are a sheik”
• e.n.fór, “he flees”

Another example can be found from Ket:

• fèmba.di, “I am a Tungus”
• dɨ.fen, “I am standing”

In Turkic, and a few Uralic and Australian Aboriginal languages, predicative adjectives and copular complements take affixes that are identical to those used on predicative verbs, but their negation is different. For example, in Turkish:

• koş.u.yor.sun “you are running”
• çavuş.sun “you are a sergeant”

Under negation this becomes (negative affixes in bold):

• koş.mu.yor.sun “you are not running”
• çavuş değil.sin “you are not a sergeant”

For this reason, the person agreement affixes used with predicative adjectives and nominals in Turkic languages are considered to be nonverbal in character. In some analyses, they are viewed as a form of verbal takeover by a copular strategy.

Factors that affect conjugation

Common grammatical categories according to which verbs can be conjugated are the following:

• Finite verb forms:
  • Grammatical person
  • Grammatical number
  • Grammatical gender
  • Grammatical tense
  • Grammatical aspect
  • Grammatical mood
  • Grammatical voice
• Non-finite verb forms.

Other factors which may affect conjugation are:

• Degree of formality (see T-V distinction, Honorific speech in Japanese, Korean speech levels)
• Inclusiveness and exclusiveness in the 1st. person plural
• Transitivity
• Valency

See also

Conjugations by language

• Category:Grammatical conjugation
• Indo-European copula

See also

• Agreement (linguistics)
• Inflection
• Redundancy (linguistics)
• Screeve
• Strong inflection
• Verb
• Verb argument
• Volition (linguistics)
• Weak inflection