Verb Conjugation comparison between several languages

Verb Conjugation comparison between several languages

Compiled by Mr. Philip YIM (2008) printed on March 18, 2008

Comparison in Present Indicative Active

Branch	Greek	Italic			Germanic	Slavic	Red
Per/No	Greek	Latin	French	Spanish	German	Russian
	ō	1st	1st	1st	weak	I
	I loose	I praise	To speak	I love	To live	I live
1s	lu ō	laud ō	parl e	am o	leb e	живу	Ø
2s	lu eis	laud ās	parl es	am as	leb st	живёшь[1]	s
3s	lu ei	laud at	parl e	am a	leb t	живёт	ØT
1pl	lu omen	laud āmus	parl onz	am amos	leb en	живём	Mn
2pl	lu ete	laud ātis	parl ez	am áis	leb t	живёте	Tsz
3pl	lu ousin	laud ant	parl ent	am an	leb en	живут	Nt

Note: The analysis is based on regular verbs only. Ø means nothing is added.

 

The red letters are words that after the connecting vowels, which follow immediately after the present stem of the verbs.

1.          Stem (present) + vowels (connecting) + personal endings (without vowels, in red letters).

2.          You will find that the differences in conjugations in a particular language, say Latin, are usually different in the "connecting vowels" only.

3.          After eliminating the vowels, you may "see" the close resemblance between these languages. As a general rule, the vowels are not persevered even in related languages; but the consonants usually do.

4.          Spanish: Spanish has three regular classes of verbs, with infinitives ending in –ar (1^st conjugation), -er (2^nd conjugation), and –ir (3^rd conjugation). All are conjugated with the same endings, except the connecting vowel (the vowel ending: a, e, e/i). When Spanish is compared with Latin, Spanish seems to eliminate the 't' sound from Latin, and changes the 'mus' into 'mos.' Then it fits smoothly in the Latin shoe.

5.          Greek: Without connecting vowels: 1s- (w, mi) c.f. Latin ō /m; 2s- s; 1p- Greek men, Latin mus; 2p- Greek te, Latin tis; 3p- Greek sin, Latin nt. Higher similarities are on the 1s and 2s.

6.          French: In contrast to Greek, French uses s in 2s, and use no consonant in 3s. French uses n (as in Greek, in 1pl and 3pl) and add z and t to them respectively.  When compared with Latin, only the 2s and 3pl, follow the same form. The "s" in Latin, is compared to z in French (in 1pl and 2pl.)

7.          German: It shows a tendency to use less consonant. When compared to Greek, all the plural forms use only one consonant (n, t.) In contrast to Greek, men, te, sin. For fun, just uses the "last found" consonant to form German plurals. Supply a 't' to Greek 2s and 3s, then you get the German endings.

8.          Russian: When compared with Latin, you can imagine a selection of t and m from Latin (on 3s and all plurals; or similar to Greek, only adding t in 3s in Greek.)

 

Reference

German (Deutsche)

---

[1] ш /ʂ/ sh in shut (voiceless retroflex fricative); ь / ʲ/ a sign which, placed after a consonant, indicates a softened pronunciation - The soft sign <ь> indicates that the preceding consonant is palatalized. This is important as palatalization is phonemic in Russian. For example, брат [brat] ('brother') contrasts with брать [bratʲ] ('to take'). palatalization - As a phonetic description, the secondary articulation of consonants by which the body of the tongue is raised toward the hard palate during the articulation of the consonant. Such consonants are phonetically palatalized, and in the International Phonetic Alphabet they are indicated by a superscript 'j', as [tʲ] for a palatalized [t]. Prior to 1989, several palatalized consonants were represented by curly-tailed variants in the IPA, e.g. [ʆ] for [ʃʲ] and [ʓ] for [ʒʲ] (see Palatal hook).