Grammatical conjugation facts for kids

Part of the conjugation of the Spanish verb correr, "to run". The main part of the word is "corr-".
Red shows the speaker (like "I"), purple shows the person you're talking to (like "you"), and teal shows a third person (like "he" or "she").
One person means singular (one), and two people mean plural (more than one).
Dawn means the past (what happened), noon means the present (what's happening now), and night means the future (what will happen).

In linguistics, conjugation is how we change a verb to show different things. Think of the verb break. We can change it to breaks, broke, broken, and breaking. All these different forms come from the same main verb.

English verbs are quite simple. But in other languages, like French or Spanish, verbs can have many different forms. Some languages, like Georgian or Basque, have hundreds of ways to change a single verb!

Verbs change their form to show things like:

• Who is doing the action (like "I," "you," "he").
• How many people are doing it (one person or many).
• When the action happened (past, present, or future).
• How the action is done (like a command, a wish, or a fact).

All the different forms of one verb are called a lexeme. The basic form of the verb, which you'd find in a dictionary, is called the lemma. For example, break is the lemma for the lexeme that includes breaks, broke, broken, and breaking.

The word "conjugation" is only used for verbs. When nouns and adjectives change their forms, it's called declension. Also, "conjugation" usually refers to verb forms that show who is doing the action and when. Forms like "to run" (the infinitive) or "running" (the gerund) usually don't change as much and are called non-finite forms.

Sometimes, "conjugation" also means a group of verbs that change in similar ways. For example, Latin verbs are divided into four main groups based on how they conjugate. If a verb doesn't follow these normal patterns, it's called an irregular verb. The full list of all the conjugated forms of a verb is called a verb paradigm, which can be shown in a conjugation table.

Verb Agreement: Who is Doing What?

Verb agreement means that the verb changes its form to match its subject (the person or thing doing the action) or sometimes its object (the person or thing receiving the action).

In English, you can see this with verbs like "go":

• I go
• You go
• We go
• They go

But for "he" or "she," we say he goes or she goes. We don't say he go. This is verb agreement! The verb "go" changes to "goes" to agree with "he" or "she."

The verb "to be" is special in English. It has even more forms:

• I am
• You are
• He is
• We are

In languages like French, verbs change a lot more to agree with their subjects. For example, "I am" is je suis, "you are" is tu es, and "she is" is elle est.

Some languages have such strong verb agreement that you don't even need to say the subject pronoun. In Spanish, "I am" can just be soy (which means "am"). You only say yo soy ("I am") if you want to emphasize the "I."

Some languages have very complex agreement systems. For example, in Ubykh, a verb can change to agree with the subject, the direct object, the indirect object, and even who benefits from the action!

What Makes Verbs Change?

Many things can affect how a verb is conjugated. Here are some common ones:

• Person: Who is doing the action (I, you, he/she/it, we, they).
• Number: How many are doing the action (singular for one, plural for many).
• Gender: In some languages, verbs change based on if the subject is male or female.
• Tense: When the action happens (past, present, future).
• Aspect: How the action happens (is it ongoing, completed, or a habit?).
• Mood: The speaker's attitude (is it a fact, a command, a wish?).
• Voice: Is the subject doing the action (active voice) or receiving it (passive voice)?

Other things that can affect conjugation include:

• Formality: How polite or formal you need to be (like saying "you" differently to a friend vs. an elder).
• Transitivity: Whether the verb needs an object (like "hit the ball") or not (like "sleep").

Examples of "To Be" in Different Languages

The verb "to be" is often the most irregular verb in many languages. Here's how it changes in the present tense in some Indo-European languages. You might notice some similarities!

¹ Archaic, poetical; used only with the pronoun 'thou'.

Conjugation Groups

In some languages, verbs are put into different groups or "classes" based on how they conjugate. This helps speakers know how to change a verb for different tenses or meanings.

Australian Aboriginal Languages

Many Australian Aboriginal languages, especially those in the Pama-Nyungan family, use conjugation classes. These classes help determine how a verb changes for tense, aspect, and mood. Usually, there are a few main classes. Two classes are "open," meaning new verbs can easily join them. The others are "closed," with a limited number of verbs.

Wati Languages

In Wati languages, there are usually four verb classes. They are named after common parts of their verb endings:

• l class
• ∅ (empty) class
• n class
• ng class

For example, in the Wanman language, these classes are called la, ya, rra, and wa verbs.

Yidiny Language

Yidiny has three verb classes:

• -n class (open, for verbs that don't need an object)
• -l class (open, for verbs that need one or two objects)
• -r class (closed, with about 20 verbs, for verbs that don't need an object)

See also

• Agreement (linguistics)
• Declension (how nouns and adjectives change)
• Inflection (the general term for words changing form)
• Verb