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In language learning, the principal parts of a Verb are the series of key forms which the student has to learn by heart in order to be able to conjugate the verb through all its forms. In English , the verb ''love'' derives all its forms systematically (''love, loves, loved, loving''), and since these can all be deduced from the basic form (the citation or dictionary form, which in English is the Infinitive ), no other principal parts have to be learned. With the verb ''sing'', on the other hand, the forms ''sang'' and ''sung'' cannot be deduced, so the learner of English must memorise three principal parts, ''sing – sang – sung''. From these, all other forms (like ''sings'' or ''singing'') can be deduced. ''(See also English Verbs , English Irregular Verbs , English As An Additional Language .)'' In Latin , most verbs have four principal parts. The verb "to carry" has the parts ''fero – ferre – tuli – latum''. ''Fero'' is the first person singular form of the present ("I carry"), but the infinitive ''ferre'' ("to carry") is also needed to deduce all the forms of the present stem. The perfect stem ''tuli'' ("I carried") and the supine stem ''latum'' (required for the perfect passive) are quite irregular in this case, but even with many verbs which are basically regular, they have to be learned in the same way. In Spanish , verbs are traditionally held to have only one principal part, the infinitive, by which one can classify the verb into one of three conjugation paradigms (according to the ending of the infinitive, which maybe ''-ar'', ''-er'' or ''-ir''). However, some scholars believe that the conjugation could be regularized by adding another principal part to Vowel-alternating Verbs , which shows the alternation. For example, ''herir'' "to hurt" is usually considered irregular because its conjugation contains forms like ''hiero'' "I hurt", ''hieres'' "you hurt", where the vowel in the Root changes into a diphthong. However, by including the first person singular, present tense, indicative mood form (''hiero'') as a principal part, and noting that the Diphthong appears only when that syllable is stressed, the conjugation of ''herir'' becomes completely predictable. ''(See also Spanish Verbs , Spanish Conjugation .)'' SEE ALSO
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