Lesson 7: Participles - present, past and future - part 2 | 1 2 3 4

Past participle

Past participles decline in the following way, which is similar to a first and second declension adjective.

	Singular			Plural
	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Masculine	Femine	Neuter
Nominative	-us	-a	-um	-i	-e	-a
Accusative	-um	-am	-um	-os	-as	-a
Genitive	-i	-e	-i	-orum	-arum	-orum
Dative	-o	-e	-o	-is	-is	-is
Ablative	-o	-a	-o	-is	-is	-is

To form the past participle, remove the ‘-um’ from the end of the supine and decline as above.

Group	Supine	Perfect participle	English
1	amo, amare, amavi, amatum	amatus, -a, -um	loved
2	habeo, habere, habui, habitum	habitus, -a, -um	had
3	duco, ducere, duxi, ductum	ductus, -a, -um	led
	capio, capere, cepi, captum	captus, -a, -um	taken
4	servio, servire, servivi, servitum	servitus, -a, -um	served

A perfect participle describes an action or a state which took place before the action or state of the main verb. Just like all participles, it must agree with the noun it is describing. A perfect participle can be translated in a number of ways.

For example:

puella    puella (singular, feminine, nominative)

vocatus    vocata (singular, feminine, nominative)

Therefore:

puella vocata timebat

The girl, having been called, was afraid.

Having been called, the girl was afraid.

After being called, the girl was afraid.

After she was called, the girl was afraid.

When she had been called, the girl was afraid.