Romance verbs refers to the verb

Verb

A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...

s of the Romance languages

Romance languages

The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...

. In the transition from Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 to the Romance languages, verbs went through many phonetic

Phonetics

Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech, or—in the case of sign languages—the equivalent aspects of sign. It is concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds or signs : their physiological production, acoustic properties, auditory...

, syntactic

Syntax

In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....

, and semantic

Semantics

Semantics is the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, such as words, phrases, signs and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotata....

 changes. Most of the distinctions present in classical Latin continued to be made, but synthetic

Synthetic language

In linguistic typology, a synthetic language is a language with a high morpheme-per-word ratio, as opposed to a low morpheme-per-word ratio in what is described as an isolating language...

 forms were often replaced with analytic

Compound verb

In linguistics, a compound verb or complex predicate is a multi-word compound that acts as a single verb. One component of the compound is a light verb or vector, which carries any inflections, indicating tense, mood, or aspect, but provides only fine shades of meaning...

 ones. Other verb forms changed meaning, and new forms also appeared.

Comparison of conjugations

The following tables present a comparison of the conjugation of the regular verb amare "to love" in Classical Latin, and Vulgar Latin (reconstructed), and four modern Romance languages.

	Latin	Proto-Italo-Western	Spanish	Portuguese	Italian	French
Infinitive Infinitive In grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives...	amāre	amare	amar	amar	amare	aimer
Indicative Present Present tense The present tense is a grammatical tense that locates a situation or event in present time. This linguistic definition refers to a concept that indicates a feature of the meaning of a verb...	amō amās amat amāmus amātis amant	amo amas ama amamos amates aman	amo amas ama amamos amáis aman	amo amas ama amamos amais amam	amo ami ama amiamo amate amano	aime aimes aime aimons aimez aiment
Preterite Preterite The preterite is the grammatical tense expressing actions that took place or were completed in the past...	amāvī amāvistī amāvit amāvimus amāvistis amāvērunt	amai amasti amaut amammos amastes amaront	amé amaste amó amamos amasteis amaron	amei amaste amou amámos amastes amaram	amai amasti amò amammo amaste amarono	aimai aimas aima aimâmes aimâtes aimèrent1
Imperfect	amābam amābās amābat amābāmus amābātis amābant	amaba amabas amaba amabamos amabates amaban	amaba amabas amaba amábamos amabais amaban	amava amavas amava amávamos amáveis amavam	amavo amavi amava amavamo amavate amavano	aimais aimais aimait aimions aimiez aimaient
Pluperfect	amāveram amāveras amāverat amāverāmus amāverātis amāverant	amara amaras amara amaramos amarates amaran	amara amaras amara amáramos amarais amaran2	amara amaras amara amáramos amáreis amaram	-	-
Future Future The future is the indefinite time period after the present. Its arrival is considered inevitable due to the existence of time and the laws of physics. Due to the nature of the reality and the unavoidability of the future, everything that currently exists and will exist is temporary and will come...	amābō amābis amābit amābimus amābitis amābunt	-	-	-	-	-
Future Perfect Future Perfect -Album Credits:*Produced by T-Bone Burnett*All Songs Written by Autolux*Engineered by Mike Piersante*Mixed by Dave Sardy*Mastered by Stephen Marcussen *Artwork by Carla Azar-Vinyl releases:...	amāverō amāveris amāverit amāverimus amāveritis amāverint	amare amares amare amaremos amaretes amaren	amare amares amare amáremos amareis amaren36	amar amares amar amarmos amardes amarem3	-	-
Subjunctive Subjunctive mood In grammar, the subjunctive mood is a verb mood typically used in subordinate clauses to express various states of irreality such as wish, emotion, possibility, judgment, opinion, necessity, or action that has not yet occurred.... Present	amem amēs amet amēmus amētis ament	ame ames ame amemos ametes amen	ame ames ame amemos améis amen	ame ames ame amemos ameis amem	ami ami ami amiamo amiate amino	aime aimes aime aimions aimiez aiment
Perfect	amāverim amāveris amaverit amāverimus amāveritis amāverint	-	-	-	-	-
Imperfect	amārem amārēs amāret amārēmus amārētis amārent	amare amares amare amaremos amaretes amaren	-	amar amares amar amarmos amardes amarem4	-	-
Pluperfect	amāvissem amāvissēs amāvisset amāvissēmus amāvissētis amāvissent	amasse amasses amasse amassemos amassetes amassen	amase amases amase amásemos amáseis amasen5	amasse amasses amasse amássemos amásseis amassem5	amassi amassi amasse amassimo amaste amassero5	aimasse aimasses aimât aimassions aimassiez aimassent56

1. Literary.
2. Its meaning has mostly shifted to that of an imperfect subjunctive in modern Spanish. It is now usually interchangeable with amase, amases, amase, etc. Nevertheless, a few rare uses as a pluperfect subsist.
3. Its meaning has shifted to that of a future subjunctive in Spanish and Portuguese.
4. Reanalysed as a personal infinitive.
5. Its meaning has shifted to that of an imperfect subjunctive in most Romance languages. But note the normal use, in modern south-eastern Umbrian of amassimo instead of standard Italian amammo to express an indicative past perfect.
6. Disused.

The copula

While the passive voice became completely periphrastic

Periphrasis

In linguistics, periphrasis is a device by which a grammatical category or grammatical relationship is expressed by a free morpheme , instead of being shown by inflection or derivation...

 in Romance, the active voice has been morphologically preserved to a greater or lesser extent. The tables below compare the conjugation

Grammatical conjugation

In linguistics, conjugation is the creation of derived forms of a verb from its principal parts by inflection . Conjugation may be affected by person, number, gender, tense, aspect, mood, voice, or other grammatical categories...

 of the Latin verbs SVM and STO in the active voice with that of the Romance copulae, their descendants. For simplicity, only the 1st. person singular is listed for finite forms

Finite verb

A finite verb is a verb that is inflected for person and for tense according to the rules and categories of the languages in which it occurs. Finite verbs can form independent clauses, which can stand on their own as complete sentences....

. Note that certain forms in romance languages come from the suppletive

Suppletion

In linguistics and etymology, suppletion is traditionally understood as the use of one word as the inflected form of another word when the two words are not cognate. For those learning a language, suppletive forms will be seen as "irregular" or even "highly irregular". The term "suppletion" implies...

 verb SEDEO (to be sit down) instead of SVM, e.g. subjunctive present: SEDEA > sia, sea, seja... (mediaeval Galician-Portuguese, for instance, had double forms in the whole conjugation: sou/sejo, era/sia, fui/sevi, fora/severa, fosse/sevesse...)

Indicative
	Latin		Italian		French	Spanish		Portuguese
Present	SVM	STO	sono	sto	suis	soy	estoy	sou	estou
Perfect/Preterite	FVI	STETI	fui	stetti	fus	fui	estuve	fui	estive
Imperfect	ERAM	STABAM	ero	stavo	étais	era	estaba	era	estava
Pluperfect	FVERAM	STETERAM	-	-	-	fuera	estuviera	fora	estivera
Future1	ERO	STABO	sarò	starò	serai	seré	estaré	serei	estarei
Subjunctive
Present	SIM	STEM	sia	stia	sois	sea	esté	seja	esteja
Perfect/Preterite2	FVERIM	STETERIM	-	-	-	fuera	estuviera	for	estiver
Imperfect	ESSEM	STAREM	-	-	-	-	-	ser	estar
Pluperfect	FVISSEM	STETISSEM	fossi	stessi	fusse	fuese	estuviese	fosse	estivesse
Non-finite
Infinitive	ESSE	STARE	essere	stare	être	ser	estar	ser	estar
Supine	-	STATVM	stato	stato	été	sido	estado	sido	estado
Gerund	ESENDVM	STANDVM	essendo	stando	étant	siendo	estando	sendo	estando

Indicative
	Latin		Catalan		Sicilian		Romansh	Romanian
Present	SVM	STO	sóc	estic	sugnu	staiu	sun	sunt
Perfect/Preterite	FVI	STETI	fui	estiguí	fui	stesi	-	fui, fusei
Imperfect	ERAM	STABAM	era	estava	era	stava	era	eram
Pluperfect	FVERAM	STETERAM	fóra	estigués	fora	-	-	-
Future1	ERO	STABO	seré	estaré	-	-	-	-
Subjunctive
Present	SIM	STEM	sigui, siga	estigi, estiga	-	-	saja	să fiu
Pluperfect	FVISSEM	STETISSEM	fos	estigués	fussi	stassi	fiss	fusesem
Non-finite
Infinitive	ESSE	STARE	ser, ésser	estar	siri	stari	esser	fire, a fi
Supine	-	STATVM	estat, sigut, sét	estat	statu	statu	stà	fost
Gerund	ESENDVM	STANDVM	sent, essent	estant	sennu	stannu	essend, siond	fiind

1. The future indicative tense
   Future tense
   In grammar, a future tense is a verb form that marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet, but expected to happen in the future , or to happen subsequent to some other event, whether that is past, present, or future .-Expressions of future tense:The concept of the future,...
   
    does not derive from the Latin form (which tended to be confounded with the preterite due to sound changes in Vulgar Latin), but rather from an infinitive + HABEO periphrasis, later reanalysed
   Grammaticalisation
   In linguistics, grammaticalization is a process by which words representing objects and actions transform through sound change and language migration to become grammatical objects...
   
    as a simple tense.
2. Formally identical to the future perfect indicative
   Future Perfect
   -Album Credits:*Produced by T-Bone Burnett*All Songs Written by Autolux*Engineered by Mike Piersante*Mixed by Dave Sardy*Mastered by Stephen Marcussen *Artwork by Carla Azar-Vinyl releases:...
   
    except in the first person singular. The two paradigms merged in Vulgar Latin.

Semantic changes

In spite of the remarkable continuity of form, several Latin tenses have changed meaning, especially subjunctives.

• The supine became a past participle
  Participle
  In linguistics, a participle is a word that shares some characteristics of both verbs and adjectives. It can be used in compound verb tenses or voices , or as a modifier...
  
   in all Romance languages.
• The pluperfect indicative became a conditional
  Conditional mood
  In linguistics, the conditional mood is the inflectional form of the verb used in the independent clause of a conditional sentence to refer to a hypothetical state of affairs, or an uncertain event, that is contingent on another set of circumstances...
  
   in Catalan and Sicilian, and an imperfect subjunctive
  Subjunctive mood
  In grammar, the subjunctive mood is a verb mood typically used in subordinate clauses to express various states of irreality such as wish, emotion, possibility, judgment, opinion, necessity, or action that has not yet occurred....
  
   in Spanish.
• The pluperfect subjunctive developed into an imperfect subjunctive in all languages except Romansh, where it became a conditional, and Romanian, where it became a pluperfect indicative.
• The perfect subjunctive became a future subjunctive in Old Spanish, Portuguese, and Galician
  Galician language
  Galician is a language of the Western Ibero-Romance branch, spoken in Galicia, an autonomous community located in northwestern Spain, where it is co-official with Castilian Spanish, as well as in border zones of the neighbouring territories of Asturias and Castile and León.Modern Galician and...
  
  .
• The imperfect subjunctive became a personal infinitive
  Infinitive
  In grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives...
  
   in Portuguese and Galician.

Periphrases

In many cases, the empty cells in the tables above exist as distinct compound verb

Compound verb

In linguistics, a compound verb or complex predicate is a multi-word compound that acts as a single verb. One component of the compound is a light verb or vector, which carries any inflections, indicating tense, mood, or aspect, but provides only fine shades of meaning...

s in the modern languages. Thus, the main tense and mood distinctions in classical Latin are still made in most modern Romance languages, though some are now expressed through compound rather than simple verbs. Some examples, from Romanian:

• Perfect indicative: am fost, ai fost, a fost, am fost ați fost, au fost;
• Future indicative: voi fi, vei fi, va fi, vom fi, veți fi, vor fi;
• Future perfect indicative: voi fi fost, vei fi fost, va fi fost, vom fi fost, veți fi fost, vor fi fost.

New forms also developed, such as the conditional, which in most Romance languages started out as a periphrasis, but later became a simple tense. In Romanian, the conditional is still periphrastic: aș fi, ai fi, ar fi, am fi, ați fi, ar fi.