Perfect Passive and Ablative of Agent
Table of contents
Passive Voice
Up until this point, we have dealt exclusively with verbs in the perfect tense and active voice. Perfect tense means that our verbs have indicated actions that either took place instantaneously in the past (e.g., “he saw”) or took place in the past with lasting effects into the present (e.g., “he has died”). Active voice means that the subject of the verb performed the action.
This unit continues with verbs in the perfect tense but introduces the passive voice, which indicates a different type of relationship between the subject and the verb than the active voice does: with a passive verb, the subject receives the action of the verb, rather than performs it (as with active verbs). Note the following parallel examples:
- active voice: The dog saw the boy.
- passive voice: The boy was seen by the dog.
Both sentences communicate an essentially similar idea: the action of seeing happened, the dog was the one doing the seeing, and the boy was the one being seen. The voice of the verb in each sentence, however, sets up a different expectation for how and upon whom the verbal activity gets performed. In the first, you can imagine arrows of activity pointing to the right: the dog (subject) performs the action of saw (verb) upon the boy (direct object). In the second, however, the arrows of activity would have to point left: the boy (subject) is the noun being seen (verb), and the one performing that action is the dog (ablative of agent – more on this later).
Think about how the picture would change if we kept the subject the same in each sentence:
- The dog saw the boy.
- The dog was seen by the boy.
Suddenly, the sentences depict two different activities taking place. In the first, the dog performed the action of seeing, but in the second, the dog received the action of seeing. In both cases, the dog is the subject, meaning that in both sentences, “the dog” would have to be in the nominative case if in Latin. This is the essential difference between the active and passive voice: whether the (nominative) subject performs or receives the verb’s action.
Perfect Passive
A verb in the perfect (tense and) passive (voice), then, indicates two things simultaneously: first, the verb’s action took place in the past instantaneously or took place in the past with lasting effects into the present, and second, the subject received the action of the verb rather than performing it. As a result, there are two primary ways of expressing the perfect passive in English, both of which require the use of helping verbs and the past participle (or “-ed” form) of the verb:
- was/were [verb]ed
- has/have been [verb]ed
The difference between “was” and “were” is a matter of the number of the verb (“was” for singular, “were” for plural); the same distinction applies to “has” (singular) versus “have” (plural). In addition, note that English has many verbs with past participles that don’t necessarily end in “-ed”. Note the following examples of the perfect passive in English:
- The boy was loved.
- The daughters were seen.
- The gold was given.
- The girl has been loved.
- The bulls have been led.
- The towns have been taken.
The formation of the perfect passive in Latin involves a similar combination of multiple words. As opposed to the conjugation of the perfect active, which requires getting your verb stem from the verb’s 3rd principal part minus -ī and adding an appropriate ending to create a one-word form, the perfect passive will use two separate words to form one verbal unit, with each word fulfilling a different function:
- the 4th principal part (known as the perfect passive participle or “PPP” for short)
- a present tense form of the verb esse (“to be”)
The 4th principal part of a verb is the perfect passive participle, which is a 2-1-2 adjective (in the -us, -a, -um format) that literally means “(having been) [verb]ed.” This element of the perfect passive verb gives it its meaning (e.g., “to see” > “seen” versus “to love” > “loved”). Because it’s a verbal adjective, it has to exhibit adjective-noun agreement with the subject of the sentence (i.e., you must change the ending on the 4th principal part to match in gender, case, and number with the subject of the sentence).
The verb esse (from sum, esse, fuī, futūrus - to be) was introduced in the last module to work with linking verbs and predicate nominatives. We now need to use that verb in the present tense, but as explained previously, the verb “to be” is irregular in the present tense, which means that it doesn’t follow normal find-the-stem-and-attach-an-ending patterns. We will use an appropriate form of esse to indicate the perfect passive verb’s person and number. Here is the paradigm chart for the present tense of esse:
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | sum | sumus |
| 2nd | es | estis |
| 3rd | est | sunt |
Focus for now on the 3rd person forms, est and sunt, as we’ll be using them the most often.
So, in order to form the perfect passive, we now need to be aware of more than just the subject’s number (which we previously had to take into account due to subject-verb agreement [if a verb is singular, the subject must be singular; if the verb is plural, the subject must be plural]). The subject’s number will continue to be important, since it will dictate to us which form(s) of esse we can use as the second element of our verb. However, we must now also be aware of the subject’s gender, because the subject’s gender and number will dictate which ending we need to use on the 4th principal part.
Let’s take the sentence “The boy was loved” from above as an example. The subject, the boy, is masculine singular and would need to be in the nominative case (since the boy is the subject). When we go to the 4th principal part of the verb “to love” (amō, amāre, amāvī, amātus) and treat it like a 2-1-2 adjective (amātus, amāta, amātum), we need to use a form of it that will match a masculine nominative singular subject; thus, we’ll use amātus.
Then, given that “the boy” is a 3rd person singular entity (i.e., not 1st person like “I” or 2nd person like “you” but 3rd person like “he”), we will need to use the est form of esse to indicate the verb’s person and number. Thus:
- The boy was loved. = puer amātus est.
Note that the main verb in this sentence is amātus est, both words rather than either one in isolation. If you ever see either a 4th principal part of a verb in a sentence, you must look out for a form of esse being paired with it, and vice versa. The presence of both a 4th principal part and a form of esse means that your main verb is in the perfect passive.
What if, however, the subject were of a different gender and number than “the boy”? For example, note the following sentence:
- The trees have been seen.
In Latin, “tree” is arbor, arbōris, f.. Thus, the subject of this sentence (“the trees”) is feminine nominative plural: arbōrēs. So, when we consider forming “have been seen” as a perfect passive verb, we must take feminine plural into account when working with the 4th principal part of the verb “to see” (videō, vidēre, vīdī, vīsus -> vīsus, vīsa, vīsum) and the verb esse. Thus:
- The trees have been seen. = arbōrēs vīsae sunt.
A full paradigm of the perfect passive, then, takes these gender and number differences into account. Let’s take the verb “to see” (videō, vidēre, vīdī, vīsus) as an example:
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | vīsus, -a, -um sum | vīsī, -ae, -a sumus |
| 2nd | vīsus, -a, -um es | vīsī, -ae, -a estis |
| 3rd | vīsus, -a, -um est | vīsī, -ae, -a sunt |
Note that the participle in each box can be masculine, feminine, or neuter, depending on the gender of the subject. In addition, the endings change from the singular column to the plural column because the masculine, feminine, and neuter nominative plural endings of 2-1-2 adjectives differ from the masculine, feminine, and neuter nominative singular endings.
Here are the six example English sentences from above and their Latin translations, with a variety of subjects in different genders and numbers and a variety of verbs with differing 4th principal parts. Note how the ending on the 4th principal part and the form of esse both change with the gender and number of the subject:
- The boy was loved. puer amātus est.
- The daughters were seen. fīliae vīsae sunt.
- The gold was given. aurum datum est.
- The girl has been loved. puella amāta est.
- The bulls have been led. taurī ductī sunt.
- The towns have been taken. oppida capta est.
Sentence Structures with the Perfect Passive
While the passive voice of the verb alters the relationship between the nominative subject and the verb, other cases and uses are still perfectly usable with the passive voice. For example:
- fīliae patris vīsae sunt. (genitive of possession)
- The father’s daughters were seen.
- aurum ducī datum est. (dative, indirect object)
- The gold was given to the leader.
- oppida prīmō mense capta sunt. (ablative of time within which)
- The towns were taken in the first month.
If there are multiple nouns in your sentence, it becomes extremely important not to lose sight of which noun serves as the subject of the perfect passive verb, a role that only a substantive in the nominative case can fill. This is where the gender and number of the 4th principal part comes in handy, since it has to match the gender and number of the subject. Note, for example, how vīsae sunt requires a feminine plural subject based on the -ae ending of vīsae; patris, masculine genitive singular, does not fit the bill. Similarly, datum est requires a neuter singular subject given the -um ending of the participle, and ducī, masculine dative singular, does not match; capta sunt needs a neuter plural subject (do not be fooled by the -a on capta; if it were feminine singular, our form of esse would have to be est), and mense, masculine singular, doesn’t fit. We need to go respectively to fīliae, aurum, and oppida as our subjects because they are the nouns that match their respective participles in gender and number.
Special Definitions of Passive Verbs
Be aware, also, that certain verbs can have a change in meaning when used in the passive voice rather than the active voice. Here are two notable examples:
- videō, vidēre, vīdī, vīsus - to see; (passive) to seem
- faciō, facere, fēcī, factus - to make, do; (passive) to become
These definitions are essentially rephrasings of the ‘pure passive’ translations of these verbs; for example, “to seem” essentially means that a subject is “being seen as” something, while “to become” means that a subject is “being made into” something. Thus, these definitions in the perfect passive do not need to be “passive”-ized with “was/were [verb]ed” or “has/have been [verb]ed”; they can simply be translated in the perfect tense. In addition, both of these verbs in the passive voice can be used as linking verbs and take predicate nominatives. Here are some examples:
- vir dux factus est.
- “The man became a leader.” or “The man has become a leader.”
- arbōrēs magnae vīsae sunt.
- “The trees seemed large.” or “The trees have seemed large.”
It is technically possible for these verbs to be used in a pure passive sense (e.g., “dōna facta sunt”, “The gifts were made; “taurus vīsus est”, “The bull has been seen”). When deciding, the presence of a predicate nominative will usually point towards the linking verb definition (“to seem”, “to become”); other clues, however, like the ablative of agent construction that we are about to discuss, can point to the pure passive sense (“to be seen”, “to be made/done”).
Ablative of Agent
The passive voice directs the action of the verb at the subject as the one receiving the action. However, this means that an indicator of the one performing the action isn’t syntactically necessary for the sentence to make sense. Note how in each of the six example sentences just above, the subject and passive verb are enough to form a complete thought.
In order to indicate the performer of the action of a passive verb, English uses an optional prepositional phrase introduced by the preposition “by”:
- The boy was loved by his father.
- The daughters were seen by their mother.
- The gold was given by the farmers.
Latin works similarly by using a prepositional phrase with the preposition ab/ā (ab before a word that begins with a vowel and ā otherwise) plus an ablative substantive. This use of the ablative is called the ablative of personal agent or ablative of agent:
- The boy was loved by his father.
- puer ā patre amātus est.
- The daughters were seen by their mother.
- fīliae ā matre vīsae sunt.
- The gold was given by the farmers.
- aurum ab agricolīs datum est.
Ablative of Agent versus Ablative of Motion From
Note that you can only have an ablative of agent with a passive verb in the sentence. If you have ab/ā + an ablative substantive in a sentence with an active verb, it’s likely that ab/ā retains its core definition as “away from” and governs an ablative of motion away from. ab/ā means “by” only when the ablative that it governs is being used as an ablative of agent. Note the difference in the following examples:
- puer ā puellīs vīsus est. The boy was seen by the girls.
- puer ā puellīs cucurrit. The boy ran away from the girls.
ā puellīs is the same prepositional phrase but interpreted differently based on the context of the main verb; with the perfect passive vīsus est, it becomes an ablative of agent (“by the girls”), but with the intransitive active cucurrit, it is an ablative of motion from (“away from the girls”).
Ablative of Agent with Passive of videō and faciō
An ablative of agent can also help disambiguate between ‘alternate’ and ‘pure passive’ translations of the two verbs mentioned above, videō and faciō. Note the following comparison:
- arbōrēs ā puerīs vīsae sunt.
- “The trees were seen by the boys.” or “The trees were seen by the boys.”
- arbōrēs magnae vīsae sunt.
- “The trees seemed large.” or “The trees have seemed large.”
- “The large trees were seen.” or “The large trees have been seen.”
Both sentences have vīsae sunt as the main verb, but the difference in translation stems from other constructions in the sentence. For example, the ablative of agent puerīs works only with a passive verb; thus, “were seen” is better. However, the predicate nominative adjective magnae works best with a linking verb; thus, “seemed” is better in that circumstance. On the other hand, we can also interpret magnae as directly modifying arbōrēs, yielding a translation like “The large trees were seen.” Any of these is a viable translation; you have to use your own common sense and the context around the sentence to figure out which is best.