We just learned about first and second conjugation
verbs in the present indicative tense. Now let’s look at those same verbs in the imperative.
The word imperative comes from the Latin verb imperō-āre, to order or demand, so the imperative
is the mood for commands. You can imagine how useful and important this mood is. We’ll need it
every time we want to tell someone what to do. How many times did you hear the following growing up:
These are all imperatives. In English it is not difficult to recognize the imperative because
it is often followed by an exclamation mark. This is easily found in your Latin books as
well, but aside from this, in Latin we have specific endings to recognize commands.
It’s important to emphasize that only two forms are present in the Latin imperative
mood, the second person singular, you, and the second person plural, you all.
If you include yourself in the command, as in let’s do something, you are actually making
an invitation, an exhortation, or a suggestion, in which case the subjunctive mood will be used. We
will talk about that when the time comes. For now, there are two types of commands in Latin.
• The AFFIRMATIVE Imperative tells somebody to do something.
• The NEGATIVE Imperative tells somebody not to do something, and
it can be as strong as the affirmative. Now let’s get into more detail. In English,
without an expressed subject, it is difficult to know whether the person receiving the command
is singular or plural, because the English verb only has one form. In Latin the imperative has
its own special forms such that the singular and plural forms are different. Forming
the imperative in Latin is not difficult because this tense is entirely regular. Just
remember to drop the ending for the infinitive, -āre for first conjugation, and -ēre for second
conjugation, before adding the new endings. Here is how the AFFIRMATIVE imperative works.
If we want to command one person to praise, we would say laud-ā. If we want to command
one person to warn, we would say mon-ē. If we want to issue the same commands to a
group of people we would say laud-āte and mon-ēte. (make a chart so we see all forms)
Let’s see some examples in a sentence: You may also have come across two
very common expressions in Latin, or in Italian. The first is: Salvē! This is
actually a form of a command from salveō-ēre, to be well, and it is commonly used to simply
say hello, though it is literally a command that someone be well. The same goes with: Valē! This
one is from valeō-ēre meaning to be strong, and it is often used in Latin as goodbye. The plural
forms would be salvēte and valēte respectively. Moving on, the negative imperative in English
simply places “don’t” before the verb, as in: Don’t watch TV! Latin will instead use
the imperative form of the verb nōlō-nōlle meaning to be unwilling, conjugated
into second person singular or plural, followed by the desired verb used
in the infinitive. For “to go”, it’s like saying “be unwilling to go”, which
really just means “don’t go”. The Latin imperative of nōlle is nōlī for the singular
you and nōlīte for the plural. For example: The imperative will often be accompanied
by a noun in the vocative case, which is the person addressed for the command. Now let’s practice together. First let’s do some
simple substitutions in the singular. The English will be provided, as well as the infinitive form
of the required verb, which we must conjugate to get the phrase in Latin. For example:
Now we are going to transform the singular command into a plural. For
example, laudā! becomes laudāte! Now let’s try the opposite. See how the following
plural commands become singular:
And that covers the rules
regarding imperative tense for first and second conjugation
verbs. Let’s check comprehension.