With Two or More Subjects.

255. 1. Agreement in Number. With two or more subjects the verb is regularly plural; as,—

pater et fīlius mortuī sunt, the father and son died.

2. But sometimes the verb agrees with the nearest subject; viz.,—

a) When the verb precedes both subjects or stands between them; as,—

mortuus est pater et fīlius;

pater mortuus est et fīlius.

b) When the subjects are connected by aut; aut... aut; vel... vel; neque... neque; as,—

neque pater neque fīlius mortuus est, neither father nor son died.

3. When the different subjects are felt together as constituting a whole, the singular is used; as,—

temeritās ignōrātiōque vitiōsa est, rashness and ignorance are bad.

a. This is regularly the case in senātus populusque Rōmānus.

4. Agreement in Person. With compound subjects of different persons the verb always takes the first person rather than the second, and the second rather than the third; as,—

sī tū et Tullia valētis, ego et Cicerō valēmus, if you and Tullia are well, Cicero and I are well.

5. Agreement in Gender. With subjects of different genders the participle in the compound tenses follows the same principles as laid down for predicate adjectives. See § 235, B, 2.

VOICES.

256. 1. The Passive Voice sometimes retains traces of its original middle or reflexive meaning; as,—

ego nōn patiar eum dēfendī, I shall not allow him to defend himself.

2. In imitation of Greek usage many perfect passive participles are used by the poets as indirect middles, i.e. the subject is viewed as acting not upon itself, but as doing something in his own interest; as,—

vēlātus tempora, having veiled his temples.

a. Occasionally finite forms of the verb are thus used; as,—

tunicā indūcitur artūs, he covers his limbs with a tunic.

3. Intransitive Verbs may be used impersonally in the passive; as,—

curritur, people run (lit. it is run);

ventum est, he (they, etc.) came (lit. it was come).

TENSES.

TENSES OF THE INDICATIVE.

257. 1. The Latin tenses express two distinct notions:—

a) The period of time to which the action belongs: Present, Past, or Future.

b) The kind of action: Undefined, Going on, or Completed.

The Latin with its six tenses is able to express each of the three kinds of action for each of the three periods of time (making practically nine tenses). It does this by employing certain tenses in more than one way, as may be seen by the following table:—

KIND OF ACTION.	PERIOD OF TIME.
	PRESENT.	PAST.	FUTURE.
UNDEFINED	Present: scrībō, I write.	Historical Perfect: scrīpsī, I wrote.	Future: scrībam, I shall write.
GOING ON.	Present: scrībō, I am writing.	Imperfect: scrībēbam, I was writing.	Future: scrībam, I shall be writing.
COMPLETED.	Present Perfect: scrīpsī, I have written.	Pluperfect: scrīpseram, I had written.	Future Perfect: scrīpserō, I shall have written.

2. It will be seen that the Present may express Undefined action or action Going on; so also the Future. The Perfect likewise has a double use, according as it denotes action Completed in present time (Present Perfect) or Undefined action belonging to past time (Historical Perfect).

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