The perfect passive participle is a verb form acting as an adjective, describing something that has been done: "loved", "seen", "captured", "sent".
Can recognize Past participle recognition in a short Latin prompt
Schau dir diese Beispiele an. Kannst du das grammatische Muster erkennen?
Urbs capta est.
The city was captured.
Litterae missae ad Caesarem pervēnērunt.
The letters that were sent reached Caesar.
Achte auf die hervorgehobenen Teile. Was haben sie gemeinsam?
The perfect passive participle is a verb form acting as an adjective, describing something that has been done: "loved", "seen", "captured", "sent". It turns up constantly in inscriptions and narrative, and recognizing it lets you read phrases like "the captured city" or "the words having been spoken" without confusion.
The tell-tale endings are -tus and -sus (feminine -ta / -sa, neuter -tum / -sum):
| Verb | Participle | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| amo (love) | amatus | loved, having been loved |
| video (see) | visus | seen |
| capio (capture) | captus | captured |
| mitto (send) | missus | sent |
Because it is an adjective, it agrees with its noun in gender, number, and case: urbs capta (the captured city), verba dicta (the words spoken).
Examples:
For English speakers: English has an -ed form that does the same double duty ("a loved child", "the child was loved"), so the concept transfers well. The trap is the ending. A form in -tus / -sus is passive ("having been done to"), whereas an active past ("having done") uses a different construction. So captus means "captured", not "having captured". When you see a word ending in -tus, -ta, -tum (or -sus, -sa, -sum) sitting near a noun it matches, read it as "the ...ed noun".
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ÜbungsaufgabenUrbs capta est.
The city was captured.
Capta agrees with urbs as an adjective would. This participle plus a form of 'to be' makes the Latin passive past.
Litterae missae ad Caesarem pervēnērunt.
The letters that were sent reached Caesar.
Missae is feminine plural, agreeing with litterae. It works like the English past participle 'sent'.
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