Five Classical impersonal verbs package emotion in a pattern unlike English: miseret, paenitet, piget, pudet, and taedet. The person who feels is accusative, while the person or thing that causes the feeling is genitive: mē factī paenitet, literally “it causes regret in me because of the deed,” naturally “I regret what I did.” English promotes “I” to subject, so English-speaking learners must resist translating the participants before parsing their Latin cases.
The two complement slots
These verbs normally remain third-person singular. There is no expressed dummy pronoun corresponding to English “it.” Instead, two dependent cases identify the experiencer and cause.
| Verb | Core feeling | Accusative experiencer | Genitive cause | Register |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| miseret | pity | the person feeling pity | the person or condition pitied | ordinary and elevated Classical prose |
| paenitet | regret, dissatisfaction, change of mind | the person who regrets | the act, decision, or situation regretted | ordinary Classical prose |
| piget | annoyance, vexation, reluctant regret | the person vexed | what is irksome | ordinary Classical prose |
| pudet | shame | the person ashamed | the shameful act, quality, or person | ordinary Classical prose |
| taedet | weariness, disgust | the person wearied | what has become tiresome | ordinary Classical prose |
Mē tuī miseret, quod tot malīs premeris.
I pity you because you are burdened by so many troubles.
Mē is accusative “me,” the experiencer. Tuī is the objective genitive of tū, the person pitied. Initial position does not make mē nominative.
Nōs familiārum quae domōs āmīsērunt miseret.
We pity the families who lost their homes.
Mē verbōrum meōrum paenitet; veniam petam.
I regret my words; I will ask for forgiveness.
Accusative mē names the person who regrets, while genitive verbōrum meōrum names the words that cause that regret.
The accusative names who feels
The experiencer uses the ordinary accusative forms mē, tē, eum, eam, nōs, vōs, eōs, or an accusative noun. It never controls the number of the impersonal verb.
Puerum mendāciī pudet, sed veniam petere dubitat.
The boy is ashamed of the lie, but he hesitates to ask forgiveness.
Vōs longae exspectātiōnis taedet; paulum tamen manēte.
You are tired of the long wait; nevertheless, stay a little longer.
Even plural vōs leaves taedet singular. The clause does not say “you all tire”; it presents the emotion impersonally as affecting you.
Tense changes normally while person remains third singular: mē paenitēbat “I regretted,” mē paenituit “I came to regret / I regretted,” mē paenitēbit “I will regret.” The perfects are partly lexical and must be learned: miseruit or misertum est, paenituit, piguit, puduit, and pertaesum est beside taeduit. The periphrastic pertaesum est is standard Classical usage, not a personal passive agreeing with the experiencer.
Eum illīus cōnsiliī mox paenitēbit.
He will soon regret that decision.
The genitive names what causes the feeling
The genitive may name a person, action, quality, institution, or state of affairs. It answers “because of whom or what does this feeling arise?” The natural English preposition varies.
Nōs huius morae piget; negōtium hodiē cōnficiāmus.
We are annoyed at this delay; let us finish the business today.
Eōs suae ignāviae puduit, cum sociī fortiter pugnārent.
They were ashamed of their own cowardice when their allies were fighting bravely.
Mē cīvitātis mōrum piget taedetque.
I am sick and tired of the conduct of the state.
The last example illustrates one genitive cause shared by two coordinated impersonal verbs. Cīvitātis depends on mōrum: the entire phrase cīvitātis mōrum is the cause of both feelings. It is (formal) moral and political prose; English must unpack its compression.
Personal and reflexive pronouns use the objective genitives meī, tuī, suī, nostrī, and vestrī. Here nostrī and vestrī are not the partitive forms nostrum and vestrum.
Cuius tē magis miseret: captīvī an familiae eius?
Whom do you pity more: the prisoner or his family?
The interrogative cuius is genitive because it asks for the cause/object of miseret. English “whom” looks like a direct object, but the Latin lexeme determines the case.
An infinitive or clause can replace the genitive cause
The cause need not be a noun phrase. An infinitive construction can present the regretted or shameful action as a whole.
Mē amīcum dēcēpisse paenitet.
I regret having deceived my friend.
The first-person accusative mē is both the experiencer of paenitet and the understood subject of perfect infinitive dēcēpisse. This is not a nominative subject hiding behind English “I.”
Eum tam temerē locūtum esse pudet.
He is ashamed to have spoken so rashly.
A finite clause can likewise supply the cause, especially when it states a fact with its own structure.
Mē pudet quod amīcō vērum nōn dīxī.
I am ashamed that I did not tell my friend the truth.
The quod clause is factual here and therefore indicative. The accusative experiencer remains mē. Do not add a genitive noun merely because the basic pattern contains one; the clause itself fills the cause slot.
A neuter pronoun can instead serve as the grammatical subject. Singular hoc leaves the verb singular; neuter plural haec can make the verb plural. This is a real exception to the usual impersonal syntax.
Hoc mē pudet: amīcum dēcēpī.
I am ashamed of this: I deceived a friend.
Haec tē nōn pudent?
Are you not ashamed of these things?
The experiencer is still accusative mē/tē. What changes is that hoc/haec is nominative and controls agreement. A plural experiencer by itself never does so.
Do not merge the impersonal and personal pity verbs
Latin also has personal verbs misereor, miserērī (deponent) and miserēscō, miserēscere (active in form), “have pity.” They take a genitive but have a personal subject. The imperative miserēre meī, “have pity on me,” is frequent in appeals and prayers, often (formal) or (literary).
Miserēre meī; nēmō alius mihi auxilium ferre potest.
Have pity on me; no one else can bring me help.
Compare mē tuī miseret: impersonal verb, accusative experiencer, genitive person pitied. In miserēre meī, the addressee is the unexpressed nominative subject of a personal imperative, and only the pitied person appears as genitive.
The related deponents miseror and commiseror, “deplore, bewail,” normally take an accusative. Similar meanings do not erase different lexical government.
Later and Christian Latin increasingly permits personal constructions modeled on evolving usage, but they should not replace the impersonal pattern in Classical composition. The Classical system is irregular from an English perspective and must be memorized as a frame.
For the larger system—including weather verbs, oportet, and licet—see Impersonal Verbs.
A production method
- Choose the precise emotion: pity, regret, vexation, shame, or weariness.
- Put the person affected in the accusative.
- Keep the verb third-person singular in the required tense and mood, unless a neuter plural pronoun is explicitly serving as subject.
- Put a nominal cause in the genitive, or use an infinitive/content clause for an action or proposition.
- Translate only after those roles are secure.
Common Mistakes
1. Making the experiencer nominative
❌ Ego factī paeniteō.
Incorrect in standard Classical Latin—paenitet is impersonal, not a first-person verb agreeing with ego.
✅ Mē factī paenitet.
I regret what I did.
2. Making an ordinary noun cause accusative
❌ Mē culpam meam pudet.
Incorrect—an ordinary noun naming the cause of pudet belongs in the genitive; only a neuter pronoun can stand as a nominative subject.
✅ Mē culpae meae pudet.
I am ashamed of my fault.
3. Using a dative because English says “to me”
❌ Mihi tuī miseret.
Incorrect—the person affected by miseret is accusative, not dative.
✅ Mē tuī miseret.
I pity you.
4. Making the verb plural with a plural experiencer
❌ Vōs longae exspectātiōnis taedent.
Incorrect—the standard impersonal verb remains third-person singular.
✅ Vōs longae exspectātiōnis taedet.
You are tired of the long wait.
Key Takeaways
With miseret, paenitet, piget, pudet, and taedet, the experiencer is accusative and an ordinary nominal cause is genitive. An infinitive or clause can replace the genitive cause; a neuter pronoun can become the subject and control agreement. Personal misereor and accusative-taking miseror are separate lexical patterns, not interchangeable variants.
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