Imperatives are one of the verb forms Latin uses to issue commands. There are two types of imperatives: the present imperative (sometimes called the first imperative), and the future imperative (sometimes called the second imperative). In this lesson, we will only be looking at the present imperative.
In English, a command has the understood subject “you.” When someone says, “Clean your room” or “Run faster,” we understand that they mean “You clean” or “you run.” The same is true in Latin, and so imperatives are generally in the second person. (There is such a thing as a third person imperative, but we won’t be covering that here.)
The singuar imperative is formed by removing the “re” from the second principal part. The plural is formed by adding “te” to the singular, except in the third conjugation, where the short e in the singular changes to i before adding the te.
|
conjugation |
2nd principal part |
singular imperative |
plural imperative |
|
1st |
portāre to carry |
portā carry! |
portāte carry! (plural) |
|
2nd |
manēre to stay |
manē stay! |
manēte stay! (plural) |
|
3rd |
capere to take |
cape take! |
capite take! (plural) |
|
4th |
audīre to hear |
audī hear! |
audīte hear! (plural) |
There are also four common verbs that have an irregular singular imperative. One of these, the verb ferro, ferre, also has an irregular plural.
|
conjugation |
2nd principal part |
singular imperative (irregular) |
plural imperative |
|
3rd |
ducere to lead |
duc lead |
ducite lead! (plural) |
|
3rd |
dicō to say |
dic say! |
dicite say! (plural) |
|
3rd |
facere to do |
fac do! |
facite do! (plural) |
|
irregular |
ferre to bring |
fer fer! |
ferte (irregular) hear! (plural) |
We can remember this by the rhyme “duc, dic, fac, fer, should have an e, but it’s not there.”
Negative Commands
If we want to tell someone not to do something in Latin, we use an entirely different construction. We use the imperative forms of the verb nolō, nolle (“not wish, not want”) plus the infinitive of the verb we want them not to do. So:
nolī ducere – don’t lead!
nolīte ducere – don’t lead! (plural)
nolī dicere – don’t speak!
nolīte dicere – don’t speak! (plural)