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The book I'm reading says:

Once you learn the principal parts of any verb, it becomes very easy to conjugate the verb.

Then, it presents the first person and the second person of the present:

1 2 3 3 (io) 4
amo deleo lego capi audio
amas deles legis capis audis

Then, it goes on to say what tenses derive from the present. The future is one of them, it says:

exchange o for:

1 - abo: amabo

2 - bo: delebo

3 and 4 - am: legam, capiam, audiam

However, I don't see how one can figure out that the second person singular of the future for lego is leges with the knowledge given so far.

Am I missing something?

For further context, here is a page from the book: enter image description here

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2 Answers 2

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As well as knowing the principal parts, you also need to know the endings for each form. In this case, the future indicative second singular in the third and fourth conjugations is -ēs. So that's what you need to attach to the relevant stem.

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    @m26a The key is that the principal parts are the only things you need to know about the specific verb. But beyond that, you also need to know what all the different endings are: the principal parts don't tell you those, only the parts that vary by verb.
    – Draconis ♦
    Commented Jan 15 at 1:59
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    @m26a The endings don't vary with each individual verb; the principal parts do.
    – Draconis ♦
    Commented Jan 15 at 2:38
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    @m26a Or to put it another way: the principal parts of the English verb "write" are "write", "wrote", and "written". From those three you can derive all the other forms of the verb. But you also need to know that you use "-ing" to form the gerund; the principal parts don't tell you that, because it's the same for every verb in English.
    – Draconis ♦
    Commented Jan 15 at 2:39
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    I think the author assumes the reader already knows the endings because he already taught that in the book. So, once one knows the principal parts, the derivated tenses, and the endings, it is possible to conjugate basically everything.
    – m26a
    Commented Jan 15 at 18:44
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    @m26a I'd interpret the author's words so that once you have learned all the endings, you will immediately know how to conjugate a new verb if you are given its principal parts. There is some learning to do with the endings first, but after clearing that hurdle learning a new verb in all its forms is very, very quick. Endings in Latin are more regular than in many other languages.
    – Joonas Ilmavirta ♦
    Commented Jan 16 at 8:20
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The Portuguese-speaking author is implying something that is common to Portuguese and Latin: there is a small number of regular conjugations.

Once you are familiar with those, the principal parts give all the information you need to know the rest. For example, all regular verbs with infinitive in -are (1st conjugation) form the future with -aba-, some of those in -ere (long e, 2nd conj.), form it with -eba-, whereas the rest of those ending in -ere and -ire (short e → 3rd, and 4th conjugation) form the future -a- (1st person sing.) or -e- (all the others).

A more familiar example (present in Latin and preserved in Portuguese) is the imperfect:

  • -are verbs form the imperfect using -aba-: amabam, amabas, amabat, etc. In Portuguese, -are verbs transformed -aba- into -ava-.
  • -ere and -ire verbs form the imperfect using -eba-: diligebam, videbam, capiebam, vivebam. In portuguese, -eba- became -ia-.

I'm not fluent in Portuguese, but I suspect that, like in other Romance languages, the infinitive plays by itself most (or all) of the role that in Latin is played by the remaining principal parts.

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    Thank you. I think I was confused because I was only thinking of amo, deleo, lego, capi, and audio; and the present indicative. However, once I remember that the pattern will apply to all other verbs, voco, laudo, habeo, etc., it starts to make more sense. However, it is still needed to know the endings.
    – m26a
    Commented Jan 15 at 18:47

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