English verbs are pretty wimpy. They have only three forms that don't require helpers. For example, you can say “I drink.” If the subject is “he,” “she,” or “it,” the verb takes an s to become “drinks.” There is also the past-tense form “drank,” which never takes the s. (Of course, the forms “drinking” and “drunk” exist as well, but they are really verbal adjectives, so for now we'll set them aside.)

Latin verbs, unlike English ones, are bulging with distinct forms! In the last chapter you were introduced to how Latin relies on endings to show who does what to whom. Verbs are in the inflection business as well, and they have endings for things you might never have thought a verb could have an ending for. Latin verbs have inflections to encode information for five characteristics:

Person

As a grammatical term, “person” refers to the relationship between the subject of a verb and the speaker. There are three persons in Latin, with the unoriginal names “first,” “second,” and “third.” The first person is the speaker (“I” or “we”). The second person is the one or ones being spoken to (“you”). Finally, the third person is what or who is being spoken about (“he,” “she,” “it,” or “they”).

Number

Number is a fairly straightforward grammatical concept: A verb is either singular or plural.

Tense

The term “tense” is not quite as straightforward. It refers to when an action took place (we'll call this a time reference) and its duration (also known as aspect). Latin has six tenses. The present, imperfect, and future show action in progress (aspect) in the present, past, or future (time reference). The perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect show action completed (aspect) in the present, past, and future (time reference).

Mood

Grammatical mood is difficult to explain. It refers to the way a speaker treats an action. Latin has three moods. The indicative mood treats the action as a fact. (I am opening the window.) The subjunctive mood treats an action as an idea. (I might open a window.) Finally, there is the imperative mood, which treats an action as a command. (Open the window!) In Indo-European, there was also an optative mood that treated an action as a desire. (I'd like to open the window.) In Classical Latin, which is what you are studying now, the optative has merged with the subjunctive so that the subjunctive mood actually does the work of both.

Voice

Voice is the fifth characteristic of Latin verbs. It refers to a subject's relationship to a verb as performer or receiver of an action. In active voice, the subject of the verb performs the action. (He broke the glass.) In passive voice, the subject receives the action. (The glass was broken.) Passive voice is handy when you don't know — or don't want to admit — who did something. (Mistakes were made.) There is a third voice called the middle, in which a subject performs an action in such a way that the doer is affected for better or worse by the outcome. It's unlike anything in English, so there are no examples that do it justice. “I bathed the dogs” would be active voice. “The dogs were bathed” would be passive. Middle voice would say, “I bathed the dogs” (because I can't stand having stinky dogs hanging around the house, or something like that understood).

Let's pull all these characteristics together now by describing the verb in this sentence: “They were being called to duty.”