Quote:

"I have cried out to you, O Lord, from the depths."

Clamavi is the present perfect indicative form of clamo 'to call out, shout'. It's part of the liturgy of the Mass. (Originally from the Vulgate Bible, Psalms cxxix.1.)

[Added last parenthetical.)



Actually the word for "to call out, shout" isn't clamo, it's clamere.

When I took Latin we learned that a complete construction of a verb could be made from the big 4: first person present, infinitive, first person past tense, first person future tense.

So when you "describe" the verb clamo, you list itas clamo, clamere, clamavi, clamatus. Looking at clamatus (translated I called out) you can see where we got the words with "clamation in them, such as declamation, exclamation, proclamation, etc.

Clamo is a regular verb, IIRC, and it wasn't really necessary to list it with all four verb forms, but for irregular verbs it was vital:

To be in Latin is sum, esse, fui, futurus, while to go as to move from one place to another is eo, ire, ivi, itus.

As I recall, if a verb is irregular in Latin it is most likely irregular in English.

Of course, with irregular verbs such as sum, there wasn't much rhyme or reason:

Sum -- I am
es -- you (singular) are
est -- he, she, it is

summus -- we are
estes -- you (plural) are
sunt -- they are.

And I absolutely cannot remember eo, but I am certan it was not regular.

A regular Latin verb's present follows the form:

clamo
clamas
clamat
for the singular and I confess that I can't remember the plural endings.