principal parts

In GRAMMAR, a TRADITIONAL term referring to the FORMS of a VERB required to determine which CONJUGATION it belongs to. The notion was important in Latin grammars, where the principal parts of amo, for example, included the first-PERSON form of the PRESENT INDICATIVE (amo ‘I love’), the INFINITIVE amare (‘to love’), the first person form of the PERFECT indicative (amavi ‘I have loved’), and the ‘supine’ (amatum), which was a type of VERBAL NOUN (‘loving’). Verbs like amo (‘first conjugation verbs’) could thus be quickly distinguished from verbs belonging to other conjugations. The term is not usually found in modern LINGUISTIC analysis, but will be encountered in studies of LINGUISTIC HISTORIOGRAPHY.