Chapter 19

RULE 1: The fourth principal part of the verb is the perfect passive participle; it carries a sense of past-tense action with it.

RULE 2: The perfect passive participle + a form of esse = the perfect passive system of the Latin verb.

I. Grammar

Students will encounter two serious challenges in this chapter. The first is that the Latin perfect passive participle conveys a past-tense connotation (-1 in time) and so, when combined with present-tense forms of esse (+0), creates the perfect passive. The second is that the Latin verb, for the first time in the students' experience, may consist of more than one word. That is, after seeing many Latin verb forms of only one word in length many of which are equated with English verb forms several words long—e.g. laudabor = "I will be praised," laudabar = "I kept on being praised"—students will confront here Latin verb forms of more than one word.

Compared to the complexity of these challenges which entail learning quite a number of new verb forms, the interrogative pronoun and adjective, which are also included in this chapter, may seem to students the least of their problems, almost trivial. But don't let the interrogatives be overshadowed by the perfect passive system and slip by without notice. The failure to grasp the difference between relative and interrogative pronouns will come back to haunt students in the future. Spend enough class time discussing interrogatives to make the point that the distinction between qu- stem pronouns is important.

A. Formation of the Perfect Passive System

In theory, it's simple: the perfect passive participle + a form of sum = the perfect passive system. In practice, however, this verb system poses certain difficulties for English-speaking students:

1. The Formation of the Perfect Passive in Latin and English. In Latin, the sense of past tense is included in the participle, not as in English in the form of the verb "to be." That is, Latin says laudatus sum, literally "I am + having been praised" (i.e. "I now exist in a state of having been praised in the past"). Conversely, in English a past tense form of the verb "to be" + the (present) passive participle creates the perfect passive system: I have been + praised. English speakers are innately attuned to hearing the tense of a multi-word verb form in the verb "to be" and so when they hear a present form of "to be," they naturally assume the verb is present. That is, students will see laudatus sum and presume incorrectly from sum (present tense) that the verb is present ("I am + praised").

   Therefore, you must reinforce in their minds that, because laudatus is a perfect passive participle (i.e. -1 in time), the construction as a whole is perfect. From there, the rest of the tenses follow logically:

   1. Pluperfect: the perfect passive participle (-1) + the imperfect of sum (-1) = pluperfect passive (-2);
   2. Future Perfect: the perfect passive participle (-1) + the future of sum (+1) = future perfect passive (+.5).

2. The Agreement of the Perfect Passive Participle with the Subject. As an adjective, the perfect passive participle must agree with a noun, even if that noun is not stated explicitly. In all instances of the perfect passive (as far as students at present know) that noun is the subject of the sentence. Therefore, the perfect passive participle will always be in the nominative case but will change its number and gender in accordance with the subject. Overcome by all their other problems with this tense-system, students writing from English into Latin tend to forget to make the participle agree with the subject. Remind them to check the number and gender of the perfect passive participle when they are composing Latin. Also point out to them that, when they are reading Latin, the perfect passive participle can be of great help in determining the subject of the sentence.

3. Translating the Perfect Passive. As with other verb forms, there are several English translations of perfect passive forms: I have been praised, I have been being praised, I was praised. Just like perfect active forms, perfect passive forms show past action which has been completed and has some sort of bearing on the present.

   Click here for a worksheet on perfect passive forms and synopses. Explain to students that a synopsis is an "overview" of a verb (in only one person and number) as it changes tense and voice. More blank synopsis sheets are available here.

B. The History of the Perfect Passive System

Originally, the -to- verbal adjectives, ancestors of the English suffix -ed, referred to an abiding state, e.g. scitus "learned," tacitus "silent." They were also originally neutral in both tense and voice, e.g. cenatus "having dined, after dinner," adultus "grown-up," lautus "splendid, elegant" (cf. the Greek -tos verbal suffix which can be passive or active or can even show possibility). In Latin -to- verbal adjectives were drawn into the perfect-tense system which, being a past tense that emphasized present state, also crossed the boundaries of tense. Most perfect passive participles are formed by adding -tus or -itus to the verb stem, but some stems, particularly those ending in a dental (d, t, s), changed the -tus to -sus (claud- > claussus > clausus; mitt- > missus; ced- > cessus). Many ending in -sus were influenced by -si perfect active forms once the -to- verbal adjective was felt to belong to the verb system (remansi: remansum; persuasi: persuasum; oppressi: oppressum).

C. Interrogatives

Five forms of the interrogative pronoun differ from the relative pronoun:

1-3) the nominative singular forms: quis (m/f), quid (n.) [versus qui, quae, quod];

4-5) the accusative and ablative feminine forms: quem and quo [versus quam and qua].

Go carefully through the examples given by Wheelock on pp. 89-90 and have students distinguish between interrogative and relative pronouns. The interrogative adjective, identical in form to the relative pronoun, is deceptively simple. Since there is no new formation to learn, students may wrongly assume that there is nothing new to learn about this form. They must see that those interrogative forms which differ from the relative forms, as cited above, do not apply when the interrogative is an adjective, just as in English what and which—but not who—are used as adjectival interrogatives: what man? which man? but never "who man?"! For the history of the interrogatives, see Chapter 17.

II. Vocabulary

• senex: Not an i-stem noun. The base is sen-, not senic-, as might be expected from the nominative. [The base varies in other Indo-European languages, e.g. Sanskrit sanaka- beside sana-.]
• studium: Means primarily "desire, eagerness," only secondarily "study." So, guide students away from translating the Latin word with its principal English derivative study by noting that students originally "desired" learning and knowledge. As an abstract concept, studium is often used as an ablative of manner.
• certus: Means "certain" in the sense of "without question," not "some" (which is quidam, Chapter 26). [Certus derives from a -to- verbal adjective of the verb stem cer-, cf. cerno "separate" (originally krino but by a regular system of change -ri/ro- > -er-, e.g. *tris > ter, *agros > ager, Alexandros > Alexander). Thus, certus means literally "separated, distinguished."]
• novus: Cognate with English new and Attic-Ionic Greek neos (where the w-sound (digamma) was regularly lost).
• paro: The original sense of the verb was simply "put, set; make ready" but, aided by its compound praeparo (literally, "make ready in advance"), it took on the sense "prepare," hence "provide, furnish." In a middle sense "provide oneself with," it added the meaning "get, obtain, buy." Knowing this Latin word can help students remember the spelling of a particularly difficult English word, separate (frequently misspelled seperate), literally "put (-par-) apart (se-)."
• iudicium: Also means "a law-court." For the stem, see ius, Chapter 14.

III. Sentences

Practice and Review

6. Id as an adjective may throw off some students, who will automatically take id as "it" and then have too many nouns in this sentence. Reinforce the adjectival use of is, ea, id.

11. A crafty sentence! By imbedding a relative clause within a question, Wheelock forces students to distinguish between the relative and interrogative pronouns. It's wise to call this to students' attention before assigning this as homework.

IV. Quiz 7