Latin Imperative Verbs

Latin Imperative Verbs Normally, the imperative mood is used for direct commands (orders): DormiGo to sleep! English rearranges the word order of the declarative sentence, if its necessary, and replaces the period with an exclamation point. The Latin imperative is formed by removing the -re ending of the present infinitive: dormire without the -re is dormi. When ordering two or more people, add -te to the singular imperative. When telling more than one person to go to sleep, you say: DormiteSleep! For the plural imperative of 3rd conjugation verbs, the e before the dropped re is changed to an i. Thus, the plural imperative of mittere to send is: mittiteSend! but the singular imperative is: mitteSend! There are some irregular or irregular-seeming imperatives, especially in the case of irregular verbs. The imperative of ferre to carry is ferre minus the -re ending, as predicted: ferCarry! in the singular and FerteCarry! in the plural. The imperative of the verb nolo is used to form negative commands. To say dont in Latin, you ordinarily use the imperative of nolo with the infinitive of the other verb.Noli me tangere.Dont touch me! Present Imperative of Nolo Singular: noliPlural: nolite More On the Negative Imperative You can also use other constructions. For instance, for the prohibitive imperative dont hurry you would say ne festina. More Imperatives There are also less common passive and future imperatives. For the verb to love amare, the passive imperative singular is amare and the passive imperative plural is amamini. Both passive imperatives translate as be loved. For deponent verbs (verbs that are passive in form and active in meaning), the imperative is passive although the meaning is active. The future imperatives for amare are amato, in the singular, and amatote, in the plural. This isnt a form we differentiate in English. In a sense, English imperatives are future imperatives because the person giving the order is asking that something be done in the near or distant future. Memento Remember! is the future imperative of the verb memini to remember. Esto be is another relatively common Latin future imperative. Its plural is, as predicted, estote.