Impersonal Verbs

An impersonal verb is used without an ordinary nominative person or thing as its subject. Latin therefore puts it in the third-person singular: oportet “it is necessary,” licet “it is permitted,” pluit “it is raining.” English often inserts dummy it, but Latin has no corresponding pronoun; the ending -t is sufficient.

Impersonality is a syntactic pattern, not one conjugation. Some verbs are inherently impersonal, some are personal verbs with a common impersonal use, and almost any intransitive verb can form an impersonal passive. These constructions are (neutral Classical) unless marked otherwise. The difficulty for English speakers lies chiefly in finding where Latin places the person affected: often in the accusative or dative rather than the nominative.

Three main patterns

The finite verb remains singular because none of those persons is its nominative subject. A clause or infinitive can supply the content that is necessary, permitted, regretted, or pleasing.

Oportet, decet, and necesse est

Oportet, oportēre, oportuit means “it is necessary, one ought.” It normally takes an infinitive whose expressed subject is accusative. Decet, decēre, decuit means “it is fitting, becoming”; the person whom the conduct befits is accusative. Both possess past and subjunctive forms even though their ordinary finite use is third-person singular.

In oportet nōs venīre, nōs is accusative because it is the subject of venīre, not because oportet takes a direct object. English makes “we” the subject of ought; Latin makes the required action the construction's content.

Necesse est “it is necessary” is an impersonal expression rather than a single verb. A dative, an accusative-and-infinitive, or a subjunctive clause may specify who must act, depending on construction and period.

Licet, libet, and placet

Licet, licēre, licuit/licitum est means “it is permitted.” The person permitted is normally dative, and the permitted action may be an infinitive. An accusative can also occur when it is construed as the subject of that infinitive, so the dative pattern is central but not exclusive. The perfect appears both as impersonal licuit and, especially with a following infinitive, as licitum est. Libet, libēre, libuit/libitum est means “it pleases, one feels inclined”; it takes a dative. These are (neutral Classical), though libet can feel more literary than everyday textbook volō.

Personal placet literally means “it is pleasing” and takes a dative, but the neuter singular or a clause often acts as subject. In deliberative settings placet can mean “it is resolved” (formal).

The dative is not a hidden nominative. Mihi licet is structurally “it is permitted to me,” not a word-for-word equivalent of English “I may.”

The five verbs of emotion

The traditional group is miseret “it moves to pity,” paenitet “it causes regret,” piget “it disgusts/irks,” pudet “it causes shame,” and taedet “it wearies.” The experiencer is accusative; the cause is genitive, an infinitive, or a clause. They are chiefly impersonal and occur in the third-person singular.

The finite verb's tense is real: paenitet “regrets,” paenituit “regretted,” paenitēbit “will regret,” paeniteat “may regret.” The person does not control agreement. Thus plural nōs still has singular taedēbat.

Perfect forms vary lexically. Alongside active puduit, piguit, paenituit, one finds perfects such as miseritum est and taesum est. This is precisely where a dictionary's principal parts matter; an English past tense does not predict a Latin stem.

Interest and refert

Interest and rēfert can mean “it concerns, matters, is in someone's interest.” They are impersonal in this sense. The person concerned is commonly expressed by a genitive; personal pronouns use possessive forms such as meā, tuā, nostrā, vestrā (feminine ablative singular agreeing historically with rē), not ordinary personal genitives.

The degree may be expressed by adverbs or genitives of value: magnī interest “it matters greatly.” This (formal) idiom is common in argument and public prose.

Weather and circumstance

Weather verbs have no personal agent: pluit “it rains,” ningit “it snows,” tonat “it thunders,” fulgurat “there is lightning.” Here English dummy it has no Latin equivalent.

Poetry can give a weather verb a named divine subject—Iuppiter pluit “Jupiter rains”—but that is a marked (literary/poetic) personalization, not the ordinary analysis.

Impersonal passives

Latin can make a passive from an intransitive verb and leave it neuter singular: pugnātur “fighting is going on,” ventum est “people came / there was a coming.” An agent, if stated, keeps ā/ab plus ablative; the active subject does not become nominative.

This productive construction differs from lexically impersonal oportet and paenitet. See Impersonal Passive Constructions for its full tense and case behavior.

A parsing checklist

First, identify third-person singular morphology and ask whether a nominative subject is actually present. Second, look for an infinitive or clause that supplies the content. Third, classify any person as accusative experiencer, dative beneficiary, or subject accusative of an infinitive. Last, interpret the tense from the Latin form. This order prevents the English dummy it or English subject from distorting the Latin syntax.

Common Mistakes

1. Making the affected person nominative

2. Making an impersonal verb plural

3. Making the permitted person nominative

4. Translating English dummy “it” as a pronoun

5. Guessing a perfect stem

Key Takeaways

An impersonal verb remains third-person singular because no ordinary nominative person controls it. Latin places people according to each construction: accusative with the emotion verbs, normally dative with licet and libet, and accusative inside the infinitive with oportet. Weather verbs omit English dummy it, while impersonal passives productively describe an action without promoting an agent.