DESCRIPTORS OF VERB FORMS

As Latin developed into the Romance languages, the noun changed drastically. It shed nearly all its many forms, and the grammatical functions that had previously been indicated by those forms came to be indicated instead by completely different means. That was a revolution. The nouns went down a one-way street, toward reduction in number of forms, and the language, in regard to nouns at least, shifted unswervingly from synthetic to analytic. With the verbs, however, the situation is more complex. They too were simplified and regularized. Nonetheless, today they still possess a large number of forms, so, with respect to verbs, the languages remain synthetic. Many forms were altered; certain ones that had been regular in Latin became irregular, and vice versa. Moreover, the verbs, which lost many forms, also added new ones to those they had received from Latin. The picture, therefore, is not of one system overthrowing another, but rather of a system the principle of which was retained, but within which the particular forms changed. Inherited forms now exist along with innovating ones.

Here is an overview of the changes wrought in the verbs. I use the descriptors of verb forms as rubrics and point to the areas of conservatism and innovation.

In Romance verbs, person and number are still mostly marked by the verb form itself; the endings continue to indicate whether the subject is first person or second or third, singular or plural.