IS: Lesson - Translation: Perfect Passive Participles
Translation: Perfect Passive Participles
This image shows a statue bust of a pater familias. As in the earlier image, the head is covered: capite velato. That last word, velato, is a perfect passive participle, indicating that it is the head which has been covered.
The perfect passive participle has two basic translations:
- English Perfect Participle (often ending in -ed: carried)
- Having been + English perfect participle
Examples:
- amatus, amata, amatum - beloved, having been loved
- visus, visa, visum - seen, having been seen
- ductus, ducta, ductum - led, having been led
- captus, capta, captum - taken, having been taken
- auditus, audita, auditum - heard, having been heard
Using Perfect Passive Participles
Perfect Passive Participles can be used just like any other adjective, by placing the translated form directly in front of the noun:
- nuntius celatus - a hidden message
- virgo capta - the captured maiden
N.B. Recall that participles, as adjectives, must agree with the noun they modify in case number and gender. virgo is feminine, nominative and singular, and so the participle, capta, uses the feminine nominative singular adjective ending -a.
In the same way as the present participle, though, there are several possible translations that can be employed when using a perfect participle. Let's look at nuntius celatus as an example:
| Type of Translation | Translation Example |
|---|---|
| Adjective | a hidden message |
| Having been | a message having been hidden |
| Apposition | a message, hidden |
| Relative Pronoun - who, which | a message which was hidden |
| Temporal (time) - when, before, after | a message, when it was hidden a message, before it was hidden a message, after it was hidden |
| Causal - because, since | a message, because it was hidden |
| Concessive - although, even though | a message, although it was hidden |
| Conditional - if | a message, if it was hidden |
Translation in Context
Let's look at a single Latin sentence containing a perfect passive participle to see all the ways we could translate it.
Pseudolus nuntium in libro celatum cognovit.
- Adjective
- Pseudolus understood the hidden message in the book.
- Apposition
- Pseudolus understood the message hidden in the book.
- Pseudolus understood the message, having been hidden in the book.
- Relative Pronoun (who, which)
- Pseudolus understood the message, which was hidden in the book.
- Temporal (time) - before, when, after
- Pseudolus understood the message, before it was hidden in the book.*
- Pseudolus understood the message, after it was hidden in the book.*
- Pseudolus understood the message, when it was hidden in the book.*
- Causal - because, since
- Pseudolus understood the message, because it was hidden in the book.
- Concessive - although, though, even though
- Although it was hidden in the book, Pseudolus understood the message.
- Conditional - if
- Pseudolus understood the message, if it was hidden in the book.*
Nota bene
- It is the message which is hidden - the message is not the one performing the action of the verb, but rather someone did the hiding. This is called passive voice and is why we call these perfect passive participles.
- The tense of the translated participle indicates time before the independent verb and could even be translated with "had" - the message, which had been hidden...
- Reminder: participles are still verbs and as such can take objects and prepositional phrases. Here we see celatum taking in libro as its prepositional object.
- *Not every type of translation works with every participle. Those sentences marked with an asterisk (*) would need a very specific context to make sense. With other participle/noun combinations, though, those translations might fit.