Latin Grammar Mini-Series | Lesson 19: Perfect Passive Verbs

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There are two important rules to remember here: 

(1) the fourth principal part of the verb ─ that is, the perfect passive participle ─ represents past action and is translated “having been whatevered,” for example, “having been praised”; 

(2) the perfect passive participle plus a form of the verb “to be” is the formula for creating a perfect passive finite verb. 

Compared to the present passive, the perfect passive is remarkably straightforward. It involves only two verb elements: the fourth principal part of the verb, plus a form of esse (“to be”). The fourth principal part, which finally comes into play after all the chapters you’ve been memorizing it, is actually the perfect passive participle: “perfect” meaning that the action has already been completed, and “passive” meaning it imports a sense of the passive voice. 

When it stands alone, it’s translated as “having been (whatever-the-verb-is)” ─ “loved,” for instance: “having been loved.” 

The other component of the perfect passive is a form of the verb “to be.” If that form is a finite verb like sum or es, it makes the perfect passive form a finite verb form. Thus, the form of the verb “to be” imports person and number ─ if it’s sum, it’s first person singular; if it’s es, it’s second person singular, and so on.

Also, to a certain extent, it imports tense as well, because by changing the tense of the verb “to be” you can change the tense of a perfect passive verb within the perfect passive system ─ that is, make it perfect, pluperfect or future perfect, according to which tense of sum you use. 

Therefore, forming a perfect passive verb is quite simple: See, you take the:

(1) perfect passive participle and then... 

(2) you add a form of the verb “to be”: sum, es, est, sumus, estis, sunt. 

Because of this, every perfect passive verb form will always consist of two separate words. There’s that!

Let’s do an example to get a better idea: How about we take the fourth principal part of the verb amo, amo, amare, amavi, amatus (This is how it would appear if you were to look up “amo” in a latin dictionary.) Now, let’s add a form of the verb “to be” (how about “sum”) and ta-da, you have the perfect passive of “love”: amatus sum, which translates literally as “I have been loved.” 

As for the perfect passive participle, there are two elements to note when looking at its construction. First of all, its tense value. Because the participle represents an action that has occurred in the past, it translates “having been whatever-ed,” in the case of amatus, “having been loved.” So when a perfect passive participle like amatus is added to the present tense of the verb “to be” (sum), it means literally: sum (“I am”) amatus (“having been loved”). In other words, “I exist right now (sum) in a state in which I was once the object of someone’s affection (amatus).” Where Latin puts the past-tense value in the participle “having been loved,” English puts that same past value in the form of the verb “to be”: “I have been.” Thus, “I am having been loved” is the grammatical equivalent of “I have been loved.”

An example of a Latin verb, amo, conjugated in the perfect passive: 

amatus, -a, -um sum; “I have been loved,” 

amatus, -a, -um es; “you have been loved” 

amatus, -a, -um est; “he/she/it has been loved”

amati, -ae, -a sumus; “we have been loved,” 

amati, -ae, -a estis; “y’all have been loved” 

amati, -ae, -a sunt; “they have been loved”