Latin Participles

PARTICIPLES

A participle is a combination of a verb and an adjective. When we take a verb and make an adjective out of it, we have constructed a verbal adjective or participle.

The tall woman departed.

The shouting woman departed.

The men saw the beautiful town.

The men saw the destroyed town.

A participle is both an ADJECTIVE and a VERB.

Like any other adjective, it must agree with its noun in GENDER, NUMBER (singular or plural) and CASE.

Like any other verb, participles also have a TENSE:

shouting is present tense.

having been destroyed is perfect tense.

Also like any other verb, it may have an OBJECT:

OBJECT PARTICIPLE

Herculem vinum bibentem vidimus

We saw Hercules drinking wine.

HOW DO WE FORM A PARTICIPLE?

PRESENT PARTICIPLE: amans, amantis (loving) __________

Add -ns to the present stem (-ntis for genitive singular) and decline like third declension adjectives*. Remember that in the ablative singular ending we would expect amant-e, but it s actually amant-i!

PERFECT PARTICIPLES: am-a-t-us, -a, -um (having been loved) __________

This is the fourth principal part of the verb. They decline like 1st and 2nd declension adjectives*.

Almost all perfect participles are in the passive voice and translated as having been ed .

*Remember: adjectives either have the endings of 1st and 2nd declension nouns, like bon-us,-a,-um, or of 3rd declension nouns, like ferox, ferocis.