The Perfect Passive Participle

The most common participle in Latin is the perfect passive participle. The perfect passive participle is used when the action of the participle occurs before the action of the independent clause. The noun being modified is the receiver of the action. The Perfect Passive Participle is the formed using the 4th Principal Part. The perfect participle is translated in English using the ending -ed or having been -ed. This image depicts a seated pair (Tiberius and his mother, Livia).

A New Stem: The Participle Stem

To be able to successfully form the Perfect Passive Participle, we will need to use a new stem, formed by removing the -us ending from the 4th Principal Part. This new stem will be called the Participle Stem in this course. First of all, let's look at a set of verbs - the 4th principal part is bolded:

amo, amare, amavi, amatus
video, videre, vidi, visus
duco, ducere, duxi, ductus
capio, capere, cepi, captus
audio, audire, audivi, auditus

**Participle Stems**
4th Principal Part	Obtaining the Stem	Participle Stems
amatus visus ductus captus auditus	4th Principal Part - us	amatus - us = amat- visus - us - vis- ductus - us = duct- captus - us = capt- auditus - us = audit-

Formation

The perfect passive participle is formed by adding 1st and 2nd declension adjective endings to the Participle Stem. Because it uses 1st/2nd declension endings, the masculine, feminine and neuter forms will all have their own forms. The perfect passive participle has a dictionary entry with three forms: masculine (us), feminine (a), neuter (um) - all nominative singular. The remaining 1st/2nd declension endings will be added to the Participle Base (feminine form - a).

Example

amo, amare, amavi, amatus
- Participle Stem: amat- (4th PP - us)
- Add -us, -a, -um
  - amatus, amata, amatum
Participle Base: amata - a
- amat-

**Forming the Perfect Passive Participle**
Participle Stem	Perfect Passive Participle	Participle Base
Participle stem: amat- Participle stem: vis- Participle stem: duct- Participle stem: capt- Participle stem: audit-	Participle stem + us, a, um amat + us, a, um amatus, amata, amatum vis + us, a, um visus, visa, visum duct + us, a, um ductus, ducta, ductum capt + us, a, um captus, capta, captum audit + us, a, um auditus, audita, auditum	Feminine form - a amata - a = amat- visa - a = vis- ducta - a = duct- capta - a = capt- audita - a = audit-

Perfect Passive Participle Endings Chart

The chart below contains a full list of forms of the perfect passive participle for amo, amare, amavi, amatus - to love.

**Perfect Passive Participle Example**
Gender	Masculine		Feminine		Neuter
Number	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Nominative	amatus	amati	amata	amatae	amatum	amata
Genitive	amati	amatorum	amatae	amatarum	amati	amatorum
Dative	amato	amatis	amatae	amatis	amato	amatis
Accusative	amatum	amatos	amatam	amatas	amatum	amata
Ablative	amato	amatis	amata	amatis	amato	amatis

Practice Activity