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A volte il presente indicativo dei verbi in "ire" è soggetto a grossi problemi di coniugazione, come per esempio "Cucire" che a volte viene portato a "Io cucisco" (anziché il corretto "Io cucio"). Eppure alcuni verbi in "ire" si coniugano esattamente in questo modo, ad esempio "Patire" che diventa "Io patisco" e non "Io pato". Detto questo, esiste una regola che permetta di capire già dall'infinito dei verbi se andranno coniugati con il finale in "isco" oppure no?

[ENG] Sometimes the present form of verbs ending in "ire" is source of big conjugation problems, for example the verb "Cucire" sometimes is wrongly conjugated with "Io cucisco" (instead of the correct "Io cucio"). But some verbs ending in "ire" are conjugated exaclty in thi way, for example "Patire" which becomes "Io patisco" and not "Io pato". This said, is there a rule of thumb to know from the infinite form if it will be conjugated with the ending "isco" or not?

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  • For some verbs both forms are used (mento/mentisco, for instance).
    – egreg
    Nov 21, 2013 at 15:52
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    Never heard "mentisco" in modern days and I shivered just as I read it... :) (Not saying it must be incorrect, but it sounds so bad... :P)
    – Frhay
    Nov 22, 2013 at 8:27

1 Answer 1

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Verbs ending in "ire" are the so called "third conjugation" which derives from second, third and fourth Latin conjugations.

In the 80-85% of the cases, according to this source on Wikipedia, the verbs of this conjugation are called "incoativi": they are those whose conjugation may get an -isc element between root and ending and then there is no unique pattern of conjugation for them.

In this sense they are irregular in Italian and there is no specific rule to apply to discover it, but there are several lists of irregular verbs, as an example you can see Wikipedia.
You can also discover if they are regular or not by using some online tools for automatical conjugation.
If you are interested in some more technical explainations on the origin of this conjugation, Accademia della Crusca dedicated an article.

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