Latin Verb Endings vs. Personal Pronouns

 

I got an interesting e-mail about Latin grammar this morning. Here is an edited version of what I received:

Hi Stella,

For the verb esse (to be), the 1st person form is “sum”: meaning “I am“. In this case would “I” be a personal pronoun?

And can I break this down as follows:

• Ego sum = I am
• Tu es = You are
• Is/Ea/Id est = He/She/It is
• Nos sumus = We are
• Vos estis = You all are
• Ei/Eae/Ea = They are

Does the personal pronoun represent these 6 forms?

Thanks!

My reply:

Salve!

 I will try to give a short/simple answer, but I love talking about all this, so I might explain too much. 😄 Hopefully I will do just enough though!

For the verb esse (to be), the 1st person form is “sum”: meaning “I am“. In this case would “I” be a personal pronoun?

To start with, the Latin verb itself has no pronouns. How we know from a Latin verb who is doing the verbal action is the final letter/letters of the form. Those final letters of a Latin verb are what are know as “the Personal Endings.” Very nicely, for MOST verb forms in all the tenses and the moods, regular and irregular–yes, almost all but not quite all–the personal endings are the following: 

–o/-m = I ​___                                        –mus = we/us _______                   

–s = you ​______                                      –tis =   you all _________

–t = he/she/it ​________                           –nt = they ​________             

So–

amo = I love                   habuérunt = they had                Ne timeas = So that you will fear not     

videtis= You all are seeing    potuerat = he/she was able to     Oremus = let us pray   

And you can indeed use these verbs with a pronoun that corresponds to the personal ending on the verb, but you don’t have to. You can say:  

• Multa animália vident= They see many animals    and also, just as one example out of many:  
• Multa animália illi vident = Those (people) see many animals. 

And you will see both versions,  the verb alone and the verb accompanied by pronoun, equally in real Latin. 

Can I break this down as follows:

Does the personal pronoun represent these 6 forms?

Yes, you would be able to use those personal pronoun forms with those verb forms, just as you thought. (Occasionally you will see “ii” or even “i” instead of “ei“.) I put the personal pronouns in parentheses above because although you can use them whenever you want, you do not have to in Latin. (In contrast, we always have to use a noun or personal pronoun in English.)

I hope this answers your questions–thank you for e-mailing me about this! There are some very good lessons ahead in the textbook (LNM I) about all of these things, so we will spend plenty of time on them in the weeks to come!

Bene vale semper,

   Stella