Second Conjugation Italian Verbs

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The infinitives of all regular verbs in Italian end in –are, –ere, or –ire and are referred to as first, second, or third conjugation verbs, respectively. In English the infinitive (l'infinito) consists of to + verb.

amare to love   temere to fear   sentire to hear

Verbs with infinitives ending in –ere are called second conjugation, or –ere, verbs. The present tense of a regular –ere verb is formed by dropping the infinitive ending –ere and adding the appropriate endings to the resulting stem. There is a different ending for each person.

Characteristics of the Second Conjugation

• The «passato remoto» (historical past) of the second conjugation verbs has two diverse forms of the first and third person singular and third person plural:

io temetti/temei	io vendetti/vendei
egli temette/temé	egli vendette/vendé
essi temettero/temerono	essi vendettero/venderono

Note! In standard usage the forms –etti, –ette, and –ettero are preferred. The majority of verbs whose root ends in t though, such as battere, potere, and riflettere, take the endings –ei, –é and –erono.

battere	potere	riflettere
io battei	io potei	io riflettei
egli batté	egli poté	egli rifletté
essi batterono	essi poterono	essi rifletterono

• The verbs fare and dire are considered second conjugation verbs (because they are derived from two third conjugation Latin verbs—facere and dicere) as well as all verbs ending in –arre (trarre), –orre (porre), and –urre (tradurre).
• Verbs ending in –cere (vincere), –gere (scorgere), or –scere (conoscere) have a particular phonetic rule. C, g, and sc of the root maintains the soft sound of the infinitive before the declinations that start with e or i. They take the hard sound before the declinations that begin with a or o:

vincere	spargere
tu vinci	tu spargi
che egli vinca	che egli sparga
conoscere	crescere
tu conosci	tu cresci
che egli conosca	che egli cresca
conosciuto	cresciuto

• Many irregular verbs ending in –cere (piacere, dispiace, giacere, nuocere, tacere) maintain the soft sound by inserting an i before declinations that begin with a or o; if the verb has a regular past participle ending in –uto, an i is also added:

nuocere	piacere	giacere
io nuoccio	io piaccio	io giaccio
tu nuoci	tu piaci	tu giaci
essi nuocciono	essi piacciono	essi giacciono
nuociuto	piaciuto	giaciuto

• Verbs ending in –gnere are regular and maintain the i of the declinations iamo (indicative and present subjunctive) and iate (present subjunctive):

spegnere

noi spegniamo

che voi spegniate

• Verbs ending in –iere drop the i of the root before declinations that start with i:

compiere

tu compi

noi compiamo