Chapter 1

Direct Commands and Prohibitions

 Direct commands are expressed by the imperative (cf. impero, imperare, to order or command) mood of the verb. In English, the verb in the imperative is the same as the dictionary form of the verb. There are two types of commands in English and in Latin:

 The you... command is used when giving a direct order to one person or to many people ("Come with me!")

 The let... command is really more of an invitation, given to yourself or to others ("Let me tell you about it!" "Let's go!" "Let them do it themselves!").

 In Latin, the second-person you... command is made as follows: to order one person to do something, take the infinitive of the verb in question and lop off the -re. There are a few exceptions from the -ere class, like dic and fac.

Cerevisiam impera!
Order a beer!

Vide supra!
See above!

Vende urso cerevisiam!
Sell the bear a beer!

Cape cerevisiam!
Seize the beer!

Audi mihi!
Listen to me!

The way you order more than one person at a time is to add -te to the form of the singular imperative for first-, second-, and fourth-conjugation verbs (imperate, videte, audite); and for third-conjugation verbs, take the infinitive, lop off the -ere, and add -ite (vendite, capite, dicite, facite).

The imperatives noli and nolite (from the verb nolo, nolle, nolui) followed by the infinitive are used to tell somebody NOT to do something ("You don't want to do that, do you"):

Noli undas facere!
Don't make waves!

Noli rogare quid faciat tibi patria tua.
Ask not what your country can do for you.

 To form the let... command, Latin uses the present subjunctive. To make such a command negative, the sentence or clause is introduced with ne or neve. Neve (=and not) continues the ut or ne clause with a second verb. See Wheelock, p. 428.

The subjunctive? Well, this is not the first time we will encounter it this semester, so perhaps a word about how to form it is in order.

In general the personal endings of the present subjunctive are the same as the endings for the indicative verbs, but the vowels before the endings change to remind us of the subjunctive mood. There are only four tenses, we recall, for the subjunctive: present, imperfect, perfect, and past perfect (pluperfect). There is no future or future perfect, since the whole idea of the subjunctive is based on future uncertainty. The verbs have both the active and the passive voice.

For all but a few utterly off-the-wall irregular verbs, you form the present subjunctive in the following way: for non -are verbs, take the first person singular present active indicative form (i.e., the first principal part), remove the -o and add -am, -as, -at, -amus, -atis, -ant; and for -are verbs, since they have plenty of as already, take the first principal part, remove the -o and add -em, -es, -et, -emus, -etis, -ent. As you can see, these are the same endings as the others, but with e instead of a.

 A word is in order here about deponent verbs. As you know, they are verbs which are conjugated as though they were passives but whose meaning is active. They are called deponents because depono, deponere means "to put aside, to put away," and Latin grammarians have generally observed that the significant thing about these verbs is that they've put their active forms in mothballs. What is not generally added is that, in their haste, the deponents have put aside the wrong set of meanings for those forms. The deponents in Latin tend to be verbs whose focus is always the subject: to be born, to die, to be afraid, and so on.

The formation of deponent verbs is pretty straightforward. Consult the paradigms in the back of Wheelock if you don't believe me. The present imperative (that being the form under consideration in this chapter) is made as follows: the second person singular looks to all intents and purposes to be the same as what the active infinitive would be if there were one (thus, Hortare! (Urge!), Verere! (Be afraid!), Sequere! (Follow!), or Morere! (Die!). The second person plural imperative is the same as the corresponding indicative (thus, Hortamini, Veremini, Sequimini, Morimini). Remember your Aunt Minnie, as my Latin professor used to say.