An inchoative verb, sometimes called an "inceptive" verb, shows a process of beginning or becoming. Productive inchoative affixes exist in several languages, including the suffixes present in Latin and Ancient Greek, and consequently some Romance languages. Not all verbs with inchoative suffixes have retained their inceptive meaning. In Italian, for example, present indicative finisco 'I finish' contains the form of the suffix, while present indicative finiamo 'we finish' does not, yet the only difference in meaning is that of person subject; the suffix is now semantically inert. Latin and Romance Languages Latin uses the suffix -sc- to show inchoative force. The suffix is normally seen in the present tense stem, and is not present in the third and fourth principal parts. apiscor, apiscī, aptus sum reach crescō, crescere, crēvī, crētus come into being, grow up convalescō, convalescere, convaluī recover, grow strong discō, discere, didicī learn īrascor, īrascī, īrātus sum be in a rage lapidescō, lapidescere become stone nanciscor, nanciscī, nactus/nanctus sum to meet with, stumble upon nascor, nasci, natus sum to be begotten, to be generated, to be born, as nascent life noscō, noscere, nōvī, nōtus get to know obdormiscō, obdormiscere, obdormīvī, obdormītus sum fall asleep poscō, poscere, poposcī demand proficiscor, proficiscī, profectus sum set out rubescō, rubescere, rubuī to grow red, redden Romance In Romance, the inchoative suffixes in Latin became incorporated into the inflections of fourth conjugation verbs (-īre). Catalan, Occitan, Italian, and Romanian have distinctions between "infixed" (infixed with the inchoative suffix -ēscō) and "pure" (non-infixed) verbs, with the number of pure verbs tend to be fewer than the infixed ones, while French has pure verbs but treated as irregular. Catalan In Catalan, the 3rd verb category (verbs ending in ‘-ir’) is divided into 2 sub-categories: ‘pure’ and ‘inchoative’. The vast majority of 3rd category verbs are inchoative and are marked by the addition of the affix ‘-esc-, -eix-‘, with less than only 15 to 20 of all 3rd category verbs falling into the ‘pure’ sub-category. Inchoative verbs are affected in only their first, second, third and third person plural conjugations. This can be seen below in the table below comparing the present indicative conjugations of the pure verb ‘dormir’ (to sleep) with the inchoative verb ‘servir’ (to serve): It is important to note that as nearly all of the 3rd category verbs are inchoative, there is very little, if any, relationship between the inchoative verbs of