In linguistics, conjugation () is the creation of derived forms of a verb from its principal parts by inflection (alteration of form according to rules of grammar). For instance, the verb ''break'' can be conjugated to form the words ''break'', ''breaks'', ''broke'', ''broken'' and ''breaking''. While English has a relatively simple conjugation, other languages such as

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

and

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

are more complex, with each verb having dozens of conjugated forms. Some languages such as Georgian and

Basque Basque may refer to: * Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France * Basque language, their language Places * Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France * Basque Country (autonomous co ...

have highly complex conjugation systems with hundreds of possible conjugations for every verb. Verbs may inflect for

grammatical categories In linguistics, a grammatical category or grammatical feature is a property of items within the grammar of a language. Within each category there are two or more possible values (sometimes called grammemes), which are normally mutually exclus ...

such as

person A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of pro ...

number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...

, gender,

case Case or CASE may refer to: Containers * Case (goods), a package of related merchandise * Cartridge case or casing, a firearm cartridge component * Bookcase, a piece of furniture used to store books * Briefcase or attaché case, a narrow box to c ...

, tense, aspect, mood,

voice The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound producti ...

, possession, definiteness, politeness, causativity,

clusivity In linguistics, clusivity is a grammatical distinction between ''inclusive'' and ''exclusive'' first-person pronouns and verbal morphology, also called ''inclusive " we"'' and ''exclusive "we"''. Inclusive "we" specifically includes the addre ...

, interrogatives, transitivity, valency, polarity, telicity, volition, mirativity, evidentiality,

animacy Animacy (antonym: inanimacy) is a grammatical and semantic feature, existing in some languages, expressing how sentient or alive the referent of a noun is. Widely expressed, animacy is one of the most elementary principles in languages around ...

, associativity,

pluractionality In linguistics, pluractionality, or verbal number, if not used in its aspectual sense, is a grammatical aspect that indicates that the action or participants of a verb is/are plural. This differs from frequentative or iterative aspects in tha ...

, and reciprocity. Verbs may also be affected by

agreement Agreement may refer to: Agreements between people and organizations * Gentlemen's agreement, not enforceable by law * Trade agreement, between countries * Consensus, a decision-making process * Contract, enforceable in a court of law ** Meeting ...

, polypersonal agreement, incorporation,

noun class In linguistics, a noun class is a particular category of nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of the characteristic features of its referent, such as gender, animacy, shape, but such designations are often clearly conventional. Some a ...

noun classifier A classifier ( abbreviated or ) is a word or affix that accompanies nouns and can be considered to "classify" a noun depending on the type of its referent. It is also sometimes called a measure word or counter word. Classifiers play an importa ...

s, and verb classifiers.

Agglutinative In linguistics, agglutination is a morphological process in which words are formed by stringing together morphemes, each of which corresponds to a single syntactic feature. Languages that use agglutination widely are called agglutinative lan ...

and polysynthetic languages tend to have the most complex conjugations, albeit some fusional languages such as Archi can also have extremely complex conjugation. Typically the principal parts are the

root In vascular plants, the roots are the organs of a plant that are modified to provide anchorage for the plant and take in water and nutrients into the plant body, which allows plants to grow taller and faster. They are most often below the sur ...

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 Lemma may refer to: Language and linguistics * Lemma (morphology), the canonical, dictionary or citation form of a word * Lemma (psycholinguistics), a mental abstraction of a word about to be uttered Science and mathematics * Lemma (botany), ...

. The term conjugation is applied only to the inflection of verbs, and not of other parts of speech (inflection of nouns and

adjective In linguistics, an adjective ( abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the ma ...

s 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 In linguistics, a gerund ( abbreviated ) is any of various nonfinite verb forms in various languages; most often, but not exclusively, one that functions as a noun. In English, it has the properties of both verb and noun, such as being modi ...

, 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.

Verbal agreement

Verbal agreement, or concord, is a morpho- syntactic construct in which properties of the

subject Subject ( la, subiectus "lying beneath") may refer to: Philosophy *''Hypokeimenon'', or ''subiectum'', in metaphysics, the "internal", non-objective being of a thing **Subject (philosophy), a being that has subjective experiences, subjective cons ...

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, ''he go'' is not (except in the subjunctive, as "They requested that ''he go'' with them"). Instead, a special form of the verb ''to go'' has to be used to produce ''he 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'', ''he 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

exhibit more intensive agreement

morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines *Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts *Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies, ...

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'', ''he 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 Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain ** Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries ** Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, C ...

, for instance, subject pronouns do not need to be explicitly present, but 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 used only for emphasis or to clear ambiguity in complex texts. Some languages have a richer agreement system in which verbs agree also 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'').

can show agreement not only for subject, direct object and indirect object but it also can exhibit agreement for the listener as the implicit benefactor: means "they brought us the car" (neuter agreement for the listener), but 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, but all permutations of subject, verb and object are permitted.

Nonverbal person agreement

In some languages, predicative

s and copular complements receive a form of person agreement that is distinct from that used on ordinary

predicative verb A predicative verb is a verb that behaves as a grammatical adjective; that is, it predicates (qualifies or informs about the properties of its argument). It is a special kind of stative verb. Many languages do not use the present forms of the ver ...

s. Although that 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 In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun ( abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would n ...

that have become

clitic In morphology and syntax, a clitic (, backformed from Greek "leaning" or "enclitic"Crystal, David. ''A First Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics''. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1980. Print.) is a morpheme that has syntactic characteristics of a wo ...

to the nouns to which they refer. An example of nonverbal person agreement, along with contrasting verbal conjugation, can be found from BejaStassen, Intransitive Predication; p. 40 (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 The Indigenous languages of Australia number in the hundreds, the precise number being quite uncertain, although there is a range of estimates from a minimum of around 250 (using the technical definition of 'language' as non-mutually intellig ...

, 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, that becomes (negative affixes in bold): * ''koş.mu.yor.sun'' “you are not running” * ''çavuş değil.sin'' “you are not a sergeant” Therefore, 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

These common

affect how verbs can be conjugated: * Finite verb forms: **

Grammatical person In linguistics, grammatical person is the grammatical distinction between deictic references to participant(s) in an event; typically the distinction is between the speaker ( first person), the addressee ( second person), and others ( third pe ...

** Grammatical number ** Grammatical gender ** Grammatical tense ** Grammatical aspect **

Grammatical mood In linguistics, grammatical mood is a grammatical feature of verbs, used for signaling modality. That is, it is the use of verbal inflections that allow speakers to express their attitude toward what they are saying (for example, a statemen ...

** Grammatical voice * Non-finite verb forms. Here are other factors that may affect conjugation: *Degree of formality (see T–V distinction,

Honorific speech in Japanese The Japanese language has a system of honorific speech, referred to as , parts of speech that show respect. Their use is mandatory in many social situations. Honorifics in Japanese may be used to emphasize social distance or disparity in rank, ...

, Korean speech levels) *

Clusivity In linguistics, clusivity is a grammatical distinction between ''inclusive'' and ''exclusive'' first-person pronouns and verbal morphology, also called ''inclusive " we"'' and ''exclusive "we"''. Inclusive "we" specifically includes the addre ...

(of personal pronouns) * Transitivity * Valency

Examples

Indo-European languages usually inflect verbs for several grammatical categories in complex

paradigm In science and philosophy, a paradigm () is a distinct set of concepts or thought patterns, including theories, research methods, postulates, and standards for what constitute legitimate contributions to a field. Etymology ''Paradigm'' comes ...

s, 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 Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans grad ...

, Icelandic, Faroese, Swedish,

Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe * Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway *Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including ...

, Latvian, Bulgarian,

Serbo-Croatian Serbo-Croatian () – also called Serbo-Croat (), Serbo-Croat-Bosnian (SCB), Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS), and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS) – is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia a ...

, Polish, Slovenian,

Macedonian Macedonian most often refers to someone or something from or related to Macedonia. Macedonian(s) may specifically refer to: People Modern * Macedonians (ethnic group), a nation and a South Slavic ethnic group primarily associated with North Ma ...

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''

Hindi,

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

, Latin,

, Italian,

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Por ...

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: * Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and pe ...

, Albanian, Armenian,

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent un ...

, 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. :¹ Archaic, poetical; used only with the pronoun 'thou'. :² In Flemish dialects. :³ In the

bokmål Bokmål () (, ; ) is an official written standard for the Norwegian language, alongside Nynorsk. Bokmål is the preferred written standard of Norwegian for 85% to 90% of the population in Norway. Unlike, for instance, the Italian language, ther ...

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 colloquial, now. See, Indo-European copula :¹⁰ With the Singular they 3rd person pronoun. :¹¹ Bengali verbs are further conjugated according to

formality A formality is an established procedure or set of specific behaviors and utterances, conceptually similar to a ritual although typically secular and less involved. A formality may be as simple as a handshake upon making new acquaintances in West ...

. There are three verb forms for 2nd person pronouns: হও (''hôo'', familiar), হোস (''hoś'', very familiar) and হন (''hôn'', polite). Also two forms for 3rd person pronouns: হয় (''hôy'', familiar) and হন (''hôn'', polite). Plural verb forms are exact same as singular. :¹² Valencian. :¹³ Western varieties only.

Conjugation classes

Pama-Nyungan languages

One common feature of Pama–Nyungan languages, the largest family of

, is the notion of conjugation classes, which are a set of groups into which each lexical verb falls. They determine how a verb is conjugated for Tense–aspect–mood. The classes can but do not universally correspond to the transitivity or valency of the verb in question. Generally, of the two to six conjugation classes in a Pama-Nyungan language, two classes are open with a large membership and allow for new coinages, and the remainder are closed and of limited membership.

Wati

In Wati languages, verbs generally fall into four classes: * l class * ∅ class * n class * ng class They are labelled by using common morphological components of verb endings in each respective class in infinitival forms. In the Wanman language these each correspond to ''la'', ''ya'', ''rra'', and ''wa'' verbs respectively. See also a similar table of verb classes and conjugations in Pitjantjatjara, a Wati language wherein the correlating verb classes are presented below also by their imperative verbal endings -la, -∅, -ra and -wa respectively

Ngayarta

Ngarla The Ngarla are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Pilbara region of Western Australia. Country Norman Tindale estimated their territory, to the west of Port Hedland, at around , describing it as lying along the coast to the west of Solita ...

, a member of the Ngayarda sub-family of languages has a binary conjugation system labelled: * l class * ∅ class In the case of Ngarla, there is a notably strong correlation between conjugation class and transitivity, with transitive/ditransitive verbs falling in the l-class and intransitive/semi-transitive verbs in the ∅-class. These classes even extend to how verbs are nominalized as instruments with the l-class verb including the addition of an ''/l/'' before the nominalizing suffix and the blank class remaining blank: l-class example: ∅-class example

Yidiny

Yidiny has a ternary verb class system with two open classes and one closed class (~20 members). Verbs are classified as: * -n class (open, intransitive/semi-transitive) * -l class (open, transitive/ditransitive) * -r class (closed, intransitive)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Grammatical Conjugation Grammatical number Linguistics terminology