Latin Grammar Mini-Series | Lesson 18 - The Present Passive System

My links:

My patreon: ⁠https://www.patreon.com/user?u=103280827

My Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/rhetoricrevolution

Spotify Support: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/liam-connerly

TikTok: ⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@mrconnerly?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc⁠

Email: ⁠[email protected]⁠

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/connerlyliam/

Podcast | Latin in Layman’s - A Rhetoric Revolution https://open.spotify.com/show/0EjiYFx1K4lwfykjf5jApM?si=b871da6367d74d92

________________________________________________________

There are three important rules to remember here: 

(1) the subject is acted upon in a passive sentence; 

(2) the letter ‘r’ is the most common indicator of the passive voice in the Latin present tense system; 

(3) passive verbs expect agents. 

Ok, let’s start with the basics. Passive is a voice. It’s the opposite of active. Simple. I could say it also complements the “yin” to active’s “yang,” but I don’t care much to do so. Anyways, in essence, what the passive voice does is move the action of the verb backwards toward the subject rather than forward toward a direct object. Conversely, active verbs move the action of the verb from the subject toward a direct object. Thus, in principle, passive verbs do not take direct objects. In English, passive verb forms typically involve some form of the verb “to be,” such as:  

“I am praised,” which is passive, vs. “I praise,” which is active.  “

we were warned,” which is passive, as opposed to “we warned,” which is active.  

“they will be held,” which is passive, as opposed to “they will hold,” which is active. 

Note: It’s important in English to recognize that when “be” is added to a verb form, it doesn’t always make the verb passive. The addition of a form of the verb “to be” can also make the verb continual. 

Here’s how to tell those forms apart: a “be” form, combined with a verb that has a participle ending “-ing,” is active, whereas a “be” form, combined with a verb that has a participle ending “-ed,” is passive. 

For example: “I am praising” which is active, vs. “I am praised, being praised” which is passive; or the active form “we were warning” vs. the passive form “we were warned.” There’s a very easy way to be certain you’re dealing with a passive form and not a continual form: if it makes sense to add “by someone” after the verb form. 

Now let’s look at how the passive voice works grammatically. We’ll start with an active sentence: “Students study Latin.” If we take the active verb “study” and we make it passive by adding the verb “to be” and adding “-ed” to the end of the verb with the result that “study” becomes “is studied,” then turn the direct object of the active sentence “Latin” into the subject of the passive sentence, we end up with the passive sentence “Latin is studied.” Notice it means the same thing: Latin is being studied. But it leaves one thing out: who is doing the studying? If you want to include that in the passive sentence, you must take the subject of the active form (“students”), put it after the passive verb (“is studied”), and append “by” to the front of “students.” The result is: “Latin is studied by students.” The grammatical term for “by students” is the agent. We’ll chat more about that later. 

Notice that, while both sentences say the same thing, the action of the verb runs in exact opposite directions. 

In the active sentence, it moves from left to right, from the subject to the direct object. 

But when the verb is changed to passive, the action runs right to left, toward the subject and from the agent. 

Verbs that don't take direct objects are called “intransitive.” 

Just like English, Latin also has intransitive verbs, of which one major subset is linking verbs. Remember, linking verbs take predicates, not direct objects. Therefore, they can't be made passive. There's no direct object to be converted into the subject, a.k.a. you can't be “be-ed.”