Grammatical conjugation

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In linguistics, conjugation is the creation of derived forms of a verb from its principal parts by inflection (regular alteration according to rules of grammar). Conjugation may be affected by person, number, gender, tense, aspect, mood, voice, or other grammatical categories. All the different forms of the same verb constitute a lexeme and the form of the verb that is conventionally used to represent the canonical form of the verb is a lemma.

Conjugated forms of a verb which show a given person, number, tense, etc. are called finite forms. In many languages there are also one or more several non-finite forms, such as the infinitive or the gerund. A table giving all the conjugated variants of a verb in a given language is called a conjugation table or a verb paradigm.

A regular verb has a paradigm of conjugation that derives all forms from a few specific forms or principal parts (maybe only one, such as the infinitive in English). When a verb cannot be conjugated straightforwardly like this, it is said to be irregular. Typically the principal parts are the root and/or several modifications of it (stems).

Conjugation is also the traditional name of a group of verbs that share a similar conjugation pattern in a particular language (a verb class). This is the sense in which teachers say that Latin has 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.

1 Examples of conjugation
2 Common conjugation categories
3 Conjugations by language
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Examples of conjugation

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, indicative mood, active voice, in English, German, Icelandic, Latvian, Bulgarian, Polish, Hindi, Persian, Latin, French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Albanian, Ancient Attic Greek and Modern Greek. This is usually the most irregular verb. You may notice the similarities in corresponding verb forms. For simplicity, the personal pronouns have been omitted, and only the conjugated verb is shown.

*To be* in several Indo-European languages
Language Family	Germanic			Baltic	Slavic		Indo-Iranian		Italic					Albanian	Greek
Form / Person	English	German	Icelandic	Latvian	Bulgarian	Polish	Hindi	Persian	Latin	French	Italian	Portuguese	Spanish	Albanian	(Ancient) Attic Greek	Modern Greek
infinitive	to be	sein	vera	būt	бити* (biti)	być	hona	budan	esse	être	essere	ser	ser	none (ptc:qenë)	εἶναι (eînai)	none
1st singular	am	bin	er	esmu	съм (săm)	jestem	hoon	hastam	sum	suis	sono	sou	soy	jam	εἰμί (eimí)	είμαι (íme)
2nd singular	art*	bist	ert	esi	си (si)	jesteś	hai	hasti	es	es	sei	és	eres	je	εἶ (eî)	είσαι (íse)
3rd singular	is	ist	er	ir	е (e)	jest	hai	hast	est	est	è	é	es	është	ἐστί (estí)	είναι (íne)
1st plural	are	sind	erum	esam	сме (sme)	jesteśmy	hain	hastim	sumus	sommes	siamo	somos	somos	jemi	ἐσμέν (esmén)	είμαστε (ímaste)
2nd plural	are	seid	eruð	esat	сте (ste)	jesteście	ho	hastid	estis	êtes	siete	sois	sois	jeni	ἐστέ (esté)	είστε (íste)
3rd plural	are	sind	eru	ir	са (sa)	są	hain	hastand	sunt	sont	sono	são	son	janë	εἰσί (eisí)	είναι (íne)