Perfect indicative of crescere

Glabrigausapes

Philistine

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Your confusion is perfectly understandable, but really, when you consider the rules given on that hyperlink there, what should strike you as irregular about cresco is not its perfect, but rather its present tense form.

We see in wikibooks that the perfect is gotten by adding -(v)ī to the (perfect) stem, thus:
amā + vī 'I loved'
monu + ī 'I warned'
crē + vī 'I grew'
audī + (v)ī 'I heard'

Our crēvī fits that model, but the present system has what is commonly called an inchoative (or sometimes inceptive) affix (or infix, if you prefer to think of it that way), wiki article here. This feature, inherited from the mother language (called Proto-Indo-European), originally served to express 'initiated action' or 'frequentative action', but in Latin, where it is restricted to (or rather indicative of) the third conjugation, it has become merely a 'present tense sign'. EDIT: Deponent verbs may also have this infix. Here are some -sc- examples: posco, dormisco, apiscor, nascor, nanciscor.
 
B

Bitmap

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Lastly, it is inclusive of the so-called 'deponent' verbs, e.g. posco, dormisco, apiscor, nascor, nanciscor.

I don't fully understand this. The last three words are deponent verbs, the first two aren't... and not all deponent verbs have that infix.

Unless you understand something else by deponent than I do:puzzled:
 

Glabrigausapes

Philistine

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Ah, I knew that'd cause a mess, I just didn't know how to word it. Those were just meant to be general examples of what I was talking about. I'll edit now.
 

Quasus

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> Is this verb simply irregular, or are there other rules at play?

Personally, I prefer the point of view that there are no rules to obtain the perfect stem. You just have to know it for any given verb, that's why it's called a principal form. Of course, normally we expect a 1st conjugation perfect in -āvī,a 4th conjugation perfect in -īvī (-iī), and perhaps, a 2th conjugation perfect in -uī, but there is no guaranty, think of e. g. lavō, secō, micō. The rest of the conjugation is very regular. True irregular verbs are very few: sum, volō, ferō, and a few others.
 
B

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In a way, there are actually very few irregular perfect stems in Latin. Most perfect stems follow one of these regular patterns:

- v-perfect (laudo, laudavi)
- u-perfect (moneo, monui)
- s-perfect (respondeo, responsi)
- perfects with lengthened root-vowels (venio, veni)
- reduplicated perfects (do, dedi)
- perfects where the perfect stem looks just like the present stem (usually with 3rd conjugation verbs where the stem ends in -nd: defendo, defendi; 'seemingly' with compound verbs that have a hidden reduplication: occido, occidi from caedo, cecidi)

I hope I didn't forget any ...
 
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