CATHOLIC CHURCH OF OUR LADY & ST PETER, LEATHERHEAD   THE SPIRIT OF CATHOLICISM: CONTEMPLATION & COMPASSION, COURTESY & COURAGE Through Christ in the Spirit to the Father (Eph. 2:18) 'Act justly, love mercy, walk humbly with your God'.   Micah 6:8 Ever seeking a Grace-filled culture of love.

• Our parish
  Home Page History of our Parish & Church How to find us
• Newsletters
  Sunday, 1st November - The Feast of All Saints Sunday, 25th October - 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time Sunday, 18th October - 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time Sunday, 11th October - 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time Sunday, 4th October - 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time Sunday, 27th September - 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time Sunday, 20th September - 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time Sunday, 13th September - 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time
• Devotional
  Today's Liturgy of the Hours and Mass Readings The Plague Prayer Stations of the Cross Prayers
  (English & Latin) The Petros Path
• Rotas
  Practicalities for Reading at Sunday Mass Practicalities for Ministering the Eucharist at Mass Ministries of Service at Mass Coffee after Mass Church Cleaning Flowers
• Latin
  Introduction How to pronounce Latin Ordinary of the Mass 1 Ordinary of the Mass 2 Ordinary of the Mass 3 Summary of Grammar 1:
  Nouns & Prepositions Summary of Grammar 2:
  Adjectives & Pronouns Summary of Grammar 3:
  Verbs
• Schools
  St Peter's Catholic Primary St Andrew's Catholic Secondary
• External
  Links to external websites Links to Podcasts
• Pray the
  Plague Prayer

SUMMARY OF GRAMMAR 3: VERBS

Verbs will be found to be the most complicated part of most languages; this is certainly so of Latin. It is quite beyond the scope of these notes to deal all the intricacies of Latin verbs. Basically, we summarizes the forms we have met in the various texts of the Mass, but there is slightly more information given to help understand verbs for those wish to find out more.
 

[SOME DEFINITIONS] [Mood] [Tense] [Subject] [Non-finite Parts]

[PRINCIPAL PARTS] [Regular Verbs] [Irregular Verbs] [Deriving Verb Forms from Principal Parts]

[SOME DERIVED TENSES] [Present stem tenses] [Perfect stem tenses]

[PASSIVE & DEPONENT VERBS] [Synopsis of Passive Tenses] [Present Stem Passive Tenses] [Perfect Passive Tenses] [Deponent & Semi-Deponent Verbs] [The Verb: fio, fíeri, factus sum]

[NON-FINITE VERBS] [Infinitive] [Participle] [Supine] [Gerund & Gerundive]

---

SOME DEFINITIONS

A verb may be

• finite
  may be the principal verb of a sentence or clause and are marked for mood, tense and, in Latin and many other languages, subject;
• non-finite
  cannot serve as the principle verb of a sentence or clause; they include (in English, Latin and many other languages) infinitives, participles and, in Latin, supines, gerunds and gerundives

Mood

Mood is a grammatical category that, in theory, expresses the degree or kind of reality of a proposition as expressed by the speaker or writer. Latin distinguishes three such moods:

1. indicative is the most common and is used for all statements the speaker or writer believes or assumes to be true;
2. subjunctive is a traditional label for forms that occur in certain languages, especially European ones, that express such ideas as remoteness, possibility, desire, wish and so on. It is way beyond the scope of these notes to deal with the Latin subjunctive in full.
   In the texts of the Mass we met it most with the 'let' meaning, e.g. veniat "let it come", fiat "let it happen, let it be done", agnoscámus "let us acknowledge." We found it also after ut in: Dómine, non sum dignus ut intres … "Lord, I am not worthy that you may enter …".
3. imperative is used for uttering (or writing) commands, e.g. dona nobis "give us!"; ite "go!"

Tense

In linguistics, tense correlates with distinctions of time; but in historic and common use, tense refers to particular forms exhibited by a verb in a particular language which exhibit both time and aspectual differences.
For example: although in the strict linguistic sense English distinguishes only between past (Louise lived in France) and non-past (Louise lives in France), traditionally grammar books exhibit a whole array of tenses, e.g. 'simple past' (Louise lived), 'past continuous' (Louise was living), 'past perfect' (Louise had lived), 'future continuous' (Louise will be living) etc., etc. On this page, we use 'tense' in this second, traditional way.

So Latin is traditionally said to have six indicative tenses and four subjunctive tenses:

Present Indicative mitto I send, I am sending	Imperfect Indicative mittébam I was sending, I sent (nabitually)	Future Indicative mittam I shall send, I shall be sending
Perfect Indicative misi I sent, I have sent	Pluperfect Indicative míseram I had sent	Future Perfect Indicative mísero I shall have sent
Present Subjunctive mittam Let me send; I may send	Imperfect Subjunctive mítterem I might send	(Note: Translations with 'may' and 'might' are given for illustrative purposes only; there are several other meanings the Latin Subjunctive may have.)
Perfect Subjunctive míserim I may have sent	Pluperfect Indicative misíssem I might have sent

Note:

• The future indicative and the present subjunctive appear to be the same, but this is so only for the "I" meaning; cf.
  future indicative: mittes, mittet "you will send, he (she, it) will send"
  present subjunctive: mittas, mittat "you may send, he (she, it) may send"
• We will not give full forms of all these ten tenses below. The only ones we met in the texts of the Mass (except sanábitur "will be healed") are the present indicative, perfect indicative and present subjunctive. We shall set out only those tenses in full.

Subject

Some languages, like English and French, must always express a subject by a separate word; other languages, e.g. Spanish or Italian, often do not need to do this, because the verb endings are distinct enough to make this unnecessary. Latin behaves like Spanish and Portuguese in this regard, cf.

English	French	Spanish	Italian	Latin
I see	je vois	veo	vedo	vídeo
you see	tu vois	ves	vedi	vides
he/ she sees	il/ elle voit	ve	vede	videt
the child sees	l'enfant voit	il niño ve	il bambino vede	infans videt

In all languages, if the subject is a noun it must, of course, be expressed separately as in the last example above. But in languages like Spanish, Italian and Latin the subject is generally omitted if it is "I, (thou) you, he, she, it we, they", i.e. a personal pronoun. In Latin subject pronouns are used only for emphasis or contrast. the endings for the ten tenses of verbs are shown below; thus:

	Perfect Indicative only			The other nine tenses
	Singular	Plural		Singular	Plural
1st person	-i "I"	-imus "we"		-o, -m "I"	-mus "we"
2nd person	-ísti "thou, you"	-ístis "ye, you"		-s "thou, you"	-tis "ye, you"
2nd person	-it "he, she, it"	-érunt "they"		-t "he, she, it"	-nt "they"

Note:

• Strictly we should say these are the endings for all tenses of active verbs. But we will worry about that when we come to the Section PASSIVE & DEPONENT VERBS below.
• The 2nd person endings, which we translate as "you" in modern English, are strictly singular and plural as shown. The plural is not used as a polite term as "vous" as, for example, in modern French.

Non-finite Parts

Once again it is beyond the scope of this page to give detailed description of these forms. We note the various forms in sections below.

[ad caput páginæ]

[return to top]

---

PRINCIPAL PARTS

Dictionaries show verbs by giving their principal parts. From these principal parts, all the forms of regular verbs can be derived.

Regular Verbs

Regular verbs are grouped into conjugations in a similar way that we saw nouns grouped into declensions. The first two principal parts show what conjugation a verb belongs to, thus:

	Present Indicative	Present Infinitive	Pefect Indicative	Supine (no English equivalent)
1st conjugation	laudo I praise, I am praising	laudáre to praise	laudávi I praised, I have praised	laudátum
2nd conjugation	vídeo I see, I am seeing	vidére to see	vidi I saw, I have seen	visum
3rd conjugation	mitto I send, I am sending	míttere to send	misi I sent, I have sent	missum
3rd conjugation capio verbs	cápio I take, I am taking	cápere to take	cepi I took, I have taken	captum
4th conjugation	áudio I hear, I am hearing	audíre to hear	audívi I heard, I have heard	audítum

Note:

• Most 1st conjugation verbs form their perfect indicative and their supine the same way as laudáre. But examples of other formations are:
  ádjuvo, adjuváre, adjúvi, adjútum "to help"
  do, dare, dedi, datum "to give"
  lavo, laváre, lavi, lautum "to wash"
  sto, stare, steti, statum "to stand"
  veto, vetáre, vétui, vétitum "to forbid"
• Similarly, 4th conjugation verbs tend to form their perfect indicative and supine the same way as audíre. But there are other formations such as:
  apério, aperíre, apérui, apértum "to open"
  sálio, salíre, salui, saltum "to leap"
  séntio, sentíre, sensi, sensum "to feel, to perceive"
  vénio, veníre, veni, ventum "to come"
• You will notice that the stress falls on the infinitive ending in the 1st, 2nd and 4th conjugations; but with the 3rd conjugation it remains on the verb stem. We shall find a similar pattern when we set out the present tense of these verbs in the next section.

Irregular Verbs

Fortunately Latin has very few of these. They are always identifiable as irregular by their principal parts since the first two principle parts never fit one of the patterns shown above for regular verbs. Also the first two principle parts will indicate how irregular the verb will be; if they are very irregular, then so will the verb prove to be; if, however, they are similar to, but not quite the same as, the regular patterns then the verb is likely not to be very irregular (you will find it usually only the Present Indicative tense that is a bit irregular).
Examples of verbs we have met are:

Present Indicative	Present Infinitive	Pefect Indicative	Supine (no English equivalent)
sum I am	esse to be	fui I was, I have been	-
eo I go, I am going	ire to go	ivi or ii I went, I have gone	itum
fero I bring, I am bringing	ferre to bring	tuli I brought, I have brought	latum

Note:

• We actually met ferre in the compound form offérre (← ob + ferre) "to offer", its principle parts being: óffero, offérre, óbtuli, oblátum.
• We also met the irregular verb fio, fíeri, factus sum "to become, to be made, to be done." We shall consider it further in the Section PASSIVE & DEPONENT VERBS below.

Deriving Verb Forms from Principal Parts

If you consider the table of tenses above and the principal parts of mittere, it will be apparent that the tenses form two parallel sets; these are traditionally known as 'present stem' tenses and 'perfect stem' tenses, thus:

• Present stem tenses
  The present, imperfect and future indicative tenses and the present and imperfect subjunctive tenses are derived from the first two principal parts (e.g. mitt- ← mitto, mittere).
• Perfect stem tenses
  The perfect, pluperfect and future perfect indicative tenses and the perfect and pluperfect subjunctive tenses are derived from the third principal part (e.g. mis- ← misi).

So what is derived from the supine? Very little, infact - just two other parts of the verb besides the supine itself.
For example, from missum are derived:

• the future active participle missúrus "about to send, going to send";
• the perfect passive participle missus "(having been) sent".

The importance of the perfect passive participle will become clearer in the Section PASSIVE & DEPONENT VERBS below.

[ad caput páginæ]

[return to top]

---

SOME DERIVED TENSES

Present stem tenses

It is with these tenses that we find differences between the four conjugations and where irregular verbs may have irregular forms. We show below the two tenses we met in the texts of the Mass, i.e. present indicative and present subjunctive, together with the imperatives, as these also are derived from the present stem.

		Regular Verbs					Irregular Verbs
Infinitive		laudáre to praise	vidére to see	míttere to send	cápere to take	audíre to hear	esse to be	ire to go	ferre to bring
P R E ˙ I N D	I you (s) he/she/it   we you (pl) they	laudo laudas laudat   laudámus laudátis laudant	vídeo vides videt   vidémus vidétis vident	mitto mittis mittit   míttimus míttitis mittunt	cápio capis capit   cápimus cápitis cápiunt	áudio audis audit   audímus audítis áudiunt	sum es est   sumus estis sunt	eo is it   imus itis eunt	fero fers fert   férimus fertis ferunt
P R E ˙ S U B	I you (s) he/she/it   we you (pl) they	laudem laudes laudet   laudémus laudétis laudent	vídeam vídeas vídeat   videámus videátis vídeant	mittam mittas mittat   mittámus mittátis mittant	cápiam cápias cápiat   capiámus capiátis cápiant	áudiam áudias áudiat   audiámus audiátis áudiant	sim sis sit   simus sitis sint	eam eas eat   eámus eátis eant	feram feras ferat   ferámus ferátis ferant
I M P E R ˙	singular   plural	lauda   laudáte	vide   vidéte	mitte   míttite	cape   cápite	audi   audíte	es   este	i   ite	fer   ferte

It will be seen that the singular imperative of ferre is just the bare stem fer with no ending. There are three 3rd conjugation verbs that do this also but, unlike ferre they form the plural imperative regularly. they are:

	Singular imperative	Plural imperative
dico, dícere = to say	dic	dícite
duco, dúcere = to lead	duc	dúcite
fácio, fácere = to make, to do	fac	fácite

Perfect stem tenses

All these tenses are formed in exactly the same way for all active verbs - there are no exceptions; even the verb "to be" behaves itself here. So if you look at the table of tenses in Section SOME DEFINITIONS above, you will be able to work out that, e.g.:

Perfect Indicative fui I was, I have been	Pluperfect Indicative fúeram I had been	Future Perfect Indicative fúero I shall have been
Perfect Subjunctive fúerim I may have been	Pluperfect Indicative fúíssem I might have been

Also, towards the end of Section SOME DEFINITIONS you saw the personal endings of the perfect indicative tense. It follows, therefore, that, e.g.

laudávi = I praised, I have praised laudavísti = you (s) praised, you (s) have praised laudávit = he/she/it praised, he/she/it has praised   laudávimus = we praised, we have praised laudavístis = you (pl) praised, you (pl) have praised laudavérunt = they praised, they have praised

fui = I was, I have been fuísti = you (s) were, you (s) have been fuit = he/she/it was, he/she/it has been   fúimus = we were, we have been fuístis = you (pl) were, you (pl) have been fuérunt = they were, they have been

It remains to add that 2nd person forms ending in VOWEL+vísti(s) are frequently contracted thus:
laudavísti or laudásti = you (s) praised, you (s) have praised
laudavístis or laudástis = you (pl) praised, you (pl) have praised
 
audivísti or audísti = you (s) heard, you (s) have heard
audivístis or audístis = you (pl) heard, you (pl) have heard

[ad caput páginæ]

[return to top]

---

PASSIVE & DEPONENT VERBS

All the verbs we have considered above have been active verbs. A verb is said to be passive if its underlying object appears as its subject, e.g.

active:	Paul is writing the letter	-	Paulus epístulam scribit
passive:	The letter is being written by Paul	-	Epístula a Paulo scríbitur

The phrase by Paul (a Paulo) is said to be the agent of the passive verb and represents the underlying subject of the active form. In Latin, English and many other languages, however, the passive is particularly common if we either do not care or do not know who or what the underlying active subject is, e.g.
The letter has been sent - Epístula missa est.
 
Deponent verbs are peculiarly Latin and we shall consider them later in this Section.

Synopsis of Passive Tenses

Latin has the same ten tenses in the passive as it has in the active, e.g.

Present Indicative mittor I am sent, I am being sent	Imperfect Indicative mittébar I was being sent, I was sent (nabitually)	Future Indicative mittar I shall be sent
Perfect Indicative missus sum I was sent, I have been sent	Pluperfect Indicative míssus eram I had been sent	Future Perfect Indicative míssus ero I shall have been sent
Present Subjunctive mittar Let me be sent; I may be sent	Imperfect Subjunctive mítterer I might be sent	(Note: Translations with 'may' and 'might' are given for illustrative purposes only; there are several other meanings the Latin Subjunctive may have.)
Perfect Subjunctive míssus sim I may have been sent	Pluperfect Indicative missus essem I might have been sent

Note: just as in the active, so in the passive the Future Indicative and the Present Subjunctive are the same only in the "I" form; cf:
future indicative: mittéris, mittétur "you will be sent, he (she, it) will be sent"
present subjunctive: mittáris, mittátur "you may be sent, he (she, it) may be sent."

It will be apparent from the above table that the five 'present stem' tenses of the active are formed from the 'present stem' in a similar way in the passive. However the five passive perfect tenses are clearly not formed from the 'perfect stem'; they are compounds of the perfect passive participle and the verb "to be." Let us consider these two system in more detail below.
 

Present Stem Passive Tenses

These are all formed in the way way as their active counterparts, except for the subject endings; in the passive these endings are:

	Singular	Plural
1st person	-or (where active has -o), -r (where active has -m) "I"	-mur "we"
2nd person	-ris "thou, you"	-mini "ye, you"
2nd person	-tur "he, she, it"	-ntur "they"

We give below the present indicative passive and the present subjunctive passive for all regular verbs together with the irregular verb ferre "to bring" (the verbs "to be" and "to go" cannot have a passive form as they cannot have a direct object in the active - but see below).
We include also the passive infinitive and the passive imperatives since, like their active counterparts, they are derived from the present stem.

		Regular Verbs					Irregular Verb
Infinitive		laudári to be praised	vidéri to be seen	mitti to be sent	capi to be taken	audíri to be heard	ferri to be brought
P R E ˙ I N D	I you (s) he/she/it   we you (pl) they	laudor laudáris laudátur   laudámur laudámini laudántur	vídeor vidéris vidétur   vidémur vidémini vidéntur	mittor mítteris míttitur   míttimur mittímini mittúntur	cápior cáperis cápitur   cápimur capímini cápiúntur	áudior audíris audítur   audímur audímini áudiúntur	feror ferris fertur   férimur ferímini ferúntur
P R E ˙ S U B	I you (s) he/she/it   we you (pl) they	lauder laudéris laudétur   laudémur laudémini laudénturß	vídear videáris videátur   videámur videámini videántur	mittar mittáris mittátur   mittámur mittámini mittántur	cápiar capiáris capiátur   capiámur capiámini capiántur	áudiar audiáris audiátur   audiámur audiámini audiántur	ferar feráris ferátur   ferámur ferámini ferántur
I M P E R ˙	singular   plural	laudáre   laudámini	vidére   vidémini	mittere   mittímini	capere   capímini	audíre   audímini	ferre   ferímini

  Note:

• The singular passive imperative is identical to the active infinitive. This, however, is a pure coincidence; the two forms had quite different origins.
• Although verbs, such as the verb "to go" cannot ever have a passive form in English, they can be used impersonally with 3rd person sinular passive endings in Latin. So from ire we may the passive forms:
  present indic. itur = one goes, they are going, people are going (cf. French on va)
  present subj. eátur = let people go, let them go etc.

Perfect Passive Tenses

We have seen that these are composed of the perfect passive participle and the verb "to be." A participle is a verbal adjective and, like all adjectives in Latin, it changes to agree in number, gender and case, i.e. it declines. the Latin perfect passive participles is formed simply by:

1. Removing the final -um from the supine (4th principle part) to obtain the supine stem;
2. adding the endings of an adjective like bonus [masc.], bona [fem.], bonum [neut.] (click here, if you have forgotten) to the supine stem.

When the perfect passive participle is used to form a perfect passive tense it always in the nominative case as it agrees with the subject of the sentence. Thus a man may say "Laudátus sum" for "I have been praised", but a woman will say "Laudata sum".
 
There is little point in displaying the perfect indicative passive at for all verbs, we set it out just for laudáre.

	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter
I was praised, I have been praised	laudátus sum	laudáta sum	(laudátum sum)
you (s) were praised, you (s) have been praised	laudátus es	laudáta es	(laudátum es)
he/she/it was praised, he/she/it has been praised	laudátus est	laudáta est	laudátum est
we were praised, we have been praised	laudáti sumus	laudátæ sumus	(laudáta sumus)
you (pl) were praised, you (pl) have been praised	laudáti estis	laudátæ estis	(laudáta estis)
they were praised, they have been praised	laudáti sunt	laudátæ sunt	laudáta sunt

Since things did not speak, except in stories, and only in modern times have robots spoken, the first person neuter forms ("I, we") are not likely to occur; and, as people do not normally speak to things, the 2nd person neuter forms ("you") will also not normally occur.
 

Deponent & Semi-Deponent Verbs

These are verbs which in Latin have only passive endings but function as active verbs. Below are examples given with their principal parts:

	Present Indicative	Present Infinitive	Pefect Indicative
1st conjugation	lætor I rejoice, I am rejoicing	lætári to rejoice	lætátus sum I rejoiced, I have rejoiced
2nd conjugation	confíteor I confess, I am confessing	confitéri to confess	conféssus sum I confessed, I have confessed
3rd conjugation	loquor I speak, I am speaking	loqui to speak	locútus sum I spoke, I have spoken
3rd conjugation capio verbs	pátior I suffer, I am suffering	páti to suffer	passus sum I suffered, I have suffered
4th conjugation	lárgior I bestow, I am bestowing	largíri to bestow	largítus sum I bestowed, I have bestowed

The deponent verbs confitéri, loqui and patior came in the text of the Mass. We also came across several times the verb: miséreor, miseréri, miséritus sum "to have mercy [on]".

The verb lætári is familiar from the opening line of the Marian antiphon: Regína cæli, lætáre, allelúja ("Queen of heaven, rejoice, alleluia").

As well as deponent verbs, there are a few verbs whose present stem tenses are ordinary active ones, but their perfect tenses are formed like deponent verbs; these are known as semi-deponent for obvious reasons. Examples are:

áudeo (I dare)	audére (to dare)	ausus sum (I dared, I have dared)
gáudeo (I am glad)	gaudére (to be glad)	gavísus sum (I was glad, I have have been glad)
fido (I trust)	fídere (to trust)	fisus sum (I trusted, I have trusted)

Fídere is more common in the compounds:
    cónfido, confídere, confísus sum "to trust"
    díffido, diffídere, diffísus sum "to distrust"
 

The Verb: fio, fíeri, factus sum

This verb may look at first sight as though it is a semi-deponent. But if you look carefully you will see that:

• while fio has an active ending, the infinitive fíeri has the final -i of a passive infinitive; yet no passive infinitive actually ends in -eri with the e being unstressed;
• the perfect factus sum is the regular perfect passive of the verb: fácio, fácere, feci, factum "to make, to do."

So what is going on? Three things:

1. The verb fio, fíeri has present stem forms that are have the endings of a 4th conjugation (áudio, audíre) active verb, except for the present infinitive fíeri and the imperfect subjunctive fíerem (which does not concern us here). It means "to become, to come to pass, to happen."
2. Fio, fíeri came to be used also to mean "to be done, to be made" and came to be used instead of the present passive forms of fácio, fácere which, thus, has only active present stem forms.
3. The verb fácere did, however, retain its perfect passive forms; but these came to be used as the perfect forms of fíeri also, so that, e.g., factum est may mean: "it was made, it has been made", "it was done, it has been done", "it became, it has become", "it came to pass, it has come to pass" etc.

We found this verb four times in the text of the Mass. There are two examples of the present subjunctive:

• … ut meum ac tuum sacrifícium acceptábile fiat … "[pray] that my and your sacrifice may become acceptable …" i.e. "{Pray] … that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable …" in the priest's preparatory prayer before the Prefacre and Eucharistic Prayer;
• fiat volúntas tua "let your will be done" i.e. "thy will be done" in the Lord's Prayer.

and two examples in the future indicative in the prayers at the Offertory:

• … fiet panis vitæ. "it will become the bread of life."
• … fiet potus spiritális. "it will become [our] spiritual drink."

[ad caput páginæ]

[return to top]

---

NON-FINITE VERBS

As it was written above: "non-finite [verbs] cannot serve as the principle verb of a sentence or clause; they include (in English, Latin and many other languages) infinitives, participles and, in Latin, supines, gerunds and gerundives."

It is beyond the scope of this page to deal with all these forms in detail. We will just mention each briefly below.

Infinitive

We have seen examples of infinitives in many of the tables above. It remains merely to say that Latin, like English, has four infinitives, e.g.

	Active	Passive
Present	míttere to send	mitti to be sent
Perfect	misísse to have sent	missus esse to be have been sent

Note:

• The present infinitives are formed from the present stem and examples have been given above of all regular verbs snd of some irregular verbs.
• The perfect active infinitive, like the perfect active tenses is formed the same way for all verbs; we add -ísse to the perfect stem. The only thing to add is that perfect active infinitives ending in s ending in VOWEL+vísti(s) are frequently contracted thus:
      laudavísse or laudástse = to have praised
      audivísse or audístse = to have heard
• The perfect passive infinitive is formed in the same way as the perfect passive tenses, i.e. by using the perfect passive participle with the verb esse "to be."

Text books also usually give so-called future infinitives. English has none, and there is only one construction in Latin in which such infinitives might be needed. The so-called 'future active infinitive' is merely the future participle with esse "to be" (see below); and the so-called 'future passive infinitive' is not strictly passive and is rarely used in Latin.

Participle

Participles in English and Latin retain certain verbal features, e.g. they have direct objects (if active) and they may be modified by adverbs; but they function as adjectives. Latin participles, therefore, have the endings of adjectives. A Latin verb may have three such participles:

1. Present Participle

This is always active and is declined similar to a 3rd declension adjective like felix, e.g. "praising" = laudans [nominative], laudántis [genitive]; but participles usually form ablative singular in -e rather than -i. They are formed from the present stem thus:

laudo, laudáre → laudans "praising"	video, vidére → videns "seeing"
mitto, míttere → mittens "sending"	cápio, cápere → cápiens "taking"
áudio, audíre → audiens "hearing"	sum, esse has no present participle
eo, ire → iens, [gen.] euntis "going"	fero, ferre → ferens "bringing"

Note:

• Deponent verbs form their present participles in exactly the same way, e.g. loquor, loqui → loquens "speaking."
• In medieval Latin, the verb sum, esse is given a present participle ens "being" by some and essens by others (cf. the English words 'entity' and 'essence.')

Example of present participles from the Salve Regína (Hail, Holy queen):
ad te suspirámus, geméntes et flentes in hac lacrimárum valle.
to thee we sigh, mourning and weeping in this vale of tears.
 

2. Perfect Participle

This is usually passive and is formed from the supine (4th principle part) by using the endings of a 1st & 2nd declension like bonus. We have seen it used above with the verb "to be" to form perfect passive tenses.

Perfect participles occurred several times in the text of the Mass; one fairly frequent one is:
  benedíctus "(having been) blessed" ← benedíco, benedícere, benedíxi, benedíctum "to bless."
Several perfect participles occur in the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed; here is an example of two in the accusative singular case:
  [credo] in unum Dóminum Jesum Christum … génitum non factum …
  "[I believe] in one Lord Jesus Christ … begotten not made …"

The participle génitus is from gigno, gígnere, génui, génitum "to beget, to bear, to bring forth"; the participle factus has occurred several times above on this page.

The perfect participle of deponent verbs is active. It is given as the 3rd principle part with sum "I am". In the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed we find passus "having suffered" (for principal parts, see the Section PASSIVE & DEPONENT VERBS above).
 

3. Future Participle

This is always active and is formed by adding -úrus to the stem of the supine or perfect participle, e.g.
  laudátum → laudatúrus "about to praise, going to praise"
  missum → missúrus "about to send, going to send"
  itum → itúrus "about to go, going to go"
  locútus (est) → locutúrus "about to speak, going to speak"
The future participle of esse "to be" is: futúrus "about to be, going to be."

These participles are declined like adjectives of the 1st & 2nd declension like bonus. It is commonly used with the verb "to be" to form a sort of future tense; we saw an example of this in the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed:
  … ventúrus est cum gloria … "… he is going to come with glory …"
Also at the end of the Creed we found an example of the future participle in the genitive singular, agreeing with the noun sǽculi "of the age (epoch, era)", thus:
  exspécto … vitam ventúri sǽculi. "I look forward to … the life of the age [which is] going to come."

Supine

The main use of the supine is as the 4th principal part of non-deponent verbs!

Its use is otherwise restricted; it shows purpose and occurs only in association with verbs denoting motion. It is usually translated just like a present active infinitive in English, e.g.
  captívos liberátum venit "he came to free the prisoners."
It is, however, not common, other means of showing purpose being preferred.
 

Gerund & Gerundive

The Gerundive is a verbal adjective declined as a the 1st & 2nd declension like bonus. The Gerund is simply the neuter of this adjective used as a noun. It is very doubtful that the Romans formally distinguished the two things. But text books do distinguish between Gerunds and Gerundive so you will meet the two terms. The distinction, however, is in usage, not in form.

Formation of Gerund and Gerundive

They are formed from the present stem, thus:

	1st two principal parts	Gerundive			Gerund
		masc.	fem.	neuter
1st conj.	laudo, laudáre lætor, lætári	laudándus lætándus	laudánda lætánda	laudándum lætándum
2nd conj.	vídeo, vidére confíteor, confitéri	vidéndus confiténdus	vidénda confiténda	vidéndus confiténdum
3rd conj.	mitto, míttere loquor, loqui	mitténdus loquéndus	mitténda loquénda	mitténdum loquéndum
3rd conj. capio verbs	cápio, cápere pátior, páti	capiédus patiéndus	capiéda patiénda	capiédum patiéndum
4th conj.	áudio, audíre lárgior, largíri	audíéndus largiéndus	audíénda largiénda	audíéndum largiéndum
irreg. verbs	sum, esse	(not possible)		esséndum
	eo, ire	(not possible)		eúndum
	fero, ferre	feréndus	ferénda	feréndum

Note:

• We shall see below that the gerundive is a passive verbal adjective. We know that a verb which cannot have a a direct object cannot ever have a passive in English, although it may have an impersonal passive in Latin. Therefore such verbs, e.g. "to go" and "to be" will not a a gerundive except for the neuter in impersonal expressions.
• All verbs, however, may have a gerund since, in this use, it is an active noun and thus all verbs may have a gerund.
• In Classical Latin no gerund(ive) of esse "to be" is ever found; the form esséndum is used in Medieval Latin.

Gerund

As we said above, this is an active verbal noun. It is used in the various noun cases thus:

• It is never used in the nominative case
• It used in the accusative case only after a preposition. The most preposition used with a gerund (and, as we will see below, a gerundive) is ad, denoting purpose, e.g.
    ad cantándum stetit "he stood (in order) to sing"
• It may be used in the genitive and dative cases, e.g.
    ars cantándi "the art of singing"
    óperam cantándo dat "he is giving his attention to [his] singing"
• Its most common uses, however, are after ad as explained above, and in the ablative case. This is sometimes preceeded by a preposition, but more often comes by itself, e.g.
  cantándo voluptátem cepit "he took pleasure from singing"

Note:

• It is not used in the nominative case nor in the accusative, unless preceded by a preposition, because, unlike its English counterpart, it is never used as the subject or direct object of a verb. In these instances English may use the infinitive as an alternative and Latin must use the infinitive; thus, e.g.:
    Singing makes me happy ~ To sing makes me happy = cantáre me felícem facit (subject)
    I love singing ~ I love to sing = cantáre amo. (direct object).

Gerundive: Obligation or Necessity

In the nominative case (and occasionally the accusative) the gerundive expresses obligation or necessity. It is reputed that the Roman Senator, Cato the Elder, always prefaced his speeches with: "Carthago delénda est" ("Carthage must be destroyed"). Other examples are:
  epístulæ mitténdæ sunt "the letters must be sent"
  evangélium annuntiándum est "the Gospel must be announced"
  eúndum est "we must go, they must go, people should go, etc" (impersonal).

The person on whom the obligation or necessity falls is expressed in the dative case, e.g.
  epístulæ mihi mitténdæ sunt "I must send the letters"
  evangélium nobis annuntiándum est "we must announce the Gospel"
  Petro eúndum est "Peter must go"

Finally you may note that some Latin gerundives have made their way into English, e.g.

• agenda [neut. pl.] "things that should done" ← ago, ágere, egi, actum "to do, to act"
• addendum [neut. s.] "something that should added" ← addo, áddere, áddidi, ádditum "to add"
• memorandum [neut. s.] (often abbreviated to memo) "something that should be called to mind"
  ← mémoro, memoráre, memorávi, memorátum "to mention, to call to mind"
• corrigenda [neut. pl.] "things that should corrected" ← córrigi, corrígere, corréxi, corréctum "to correct"
  

Gerundive: Used instead of a Gerund

The use of a gerund with a direct object is generally avoided; in its place a gerundive is preferred. So, e.g. rather than ad captívos liberándum venit, Latin prefers ad captívos liberándos venit "he came to free the prisoners."

We had an example of this use of the gerundive in the Mass:

• ad Evangélium Dómini annuntiándum "(in order) to announce the Gospel of the Lord."

Besides after a preposition with the accusative case, we have:

• the genitive, e.g. gáudium Evangélii annuntiándi "the joy of announcing the Gospel"
• the dative, e.g. óperam Evangélio annuntiándo dat "he is giving his attention to announcing the Gospel"
• the dative, e.g. Evangélio annuntiándo spem tulit "by announcing the Gospel he brought hope"

The use of a gerund with a direct object is, however, not uncommon with the ablative, especially in later Latin. We have an example of this in one of the Mass, namely glorificándo … Dóminum "by glorifying the Lord" in the dismal:
  Ite in pace, glorificándo vita vestra Dóminum. "Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life."

[ad caput páginæ]

[return to top]

---