Italian conjugation

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Italian verbs have a high degree of inflection, the majority of which follows one of three common patterns of conjugation. Italian conjugation is affected by mood, person, tense, number, aspect and occasionally gender.

The three classes of verbs (patterns of conjugation) are distinguished by the endings of the infinitive form of the verb:

• 1st conjugation: -are (amare "to love", parlare "to talk, to speak");
• 2nd conjugation: -ere (credere "to believe", ricevere "to receive");
  • -arre, -orre and -urre are considered part of the 2nd conjugation, as they are derived from Latin -ere but had lost their internal e after the suffix fused to the stem's vowel (a, o and u);
• 3rd conjugation: -ire (dormire "to sleep");
  • 3rd conjugation -ire with infixed -isc- (finire "to end, to finish").^[1]

Additionally, Italian has a number of verbs that do not follow predictable patterns in all conjugation classes, most markedly the present and the absolute past. Often classified together as irregular verbs, their irregularities occur to different degrees, with forms of essere "to be", and somewhat less extremely, avere "to have", the least predictable. Others, such as andare "to go", stare "to stay, to stand", dare "to give", fare "to do, to make", and numerous others, follow various degrees of regularity within paradigms, largely due to suppletion, historical sound change or analogical developments.^[2]

The suffixes that form the infinitive are always stressed, except for -ere, which is stressed in some verbs (e.g. vedere /veˈdeːre/ "to see") and unstressed in others (e.g. prendere /ˈprɛndere/ "to take"). A few verbs have a contracted infinitive, but use their uncontracted stem in most conjugations. Fare comes from Latin facere, which can be seen in many of its forms. Similarly, dire ("to say") comes from dīcere, bere ("to drink") comes from bibere and porre ("to put") comes from pōnere.

Together with the traditional patterns of conjugation, new classes and patterns have been suggested, in order to include common verbs such as avviare, which exhibit a quite different form and stress pattern.^[3]