Questions tagged [passive-voice]
The passive-voice tag has no usage guidance.
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Vowel Quantity in Third Person Plural of Passive Voice
Cārī collēgae,
The third person plural of the passive voice in the present stem has a peculiarity that I noticed a couple of weeks ago (far later than I should have, I might add) and have been curious ...
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Sapiens dominabitur astris — is it not Passive voice?
I'm trying to find the correct translation of the phrase Sapiens dominabitur astris.
Or, perhaps, an explanation why it is not Passive voice.
The phrase is usually translated as
The wise [man] will ...
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The active and passive infinitives are said to be from locative and dative nouns, respectively: why?
According to this post, the active infinitive was formed as the locative of nouns based on verbal stems. Why was the locative used for the infinitive, rather than, say, the accusative?
The noun genos/...
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Usage of passive in Summa Theologiae
This may be a simple question or may be answered elsewhere already, but I’m curious about the usage of the passive in the following simple sentence from Aquinas:
“Ad secundum sic proceditur”
He re-...
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Parsing a present perfect participle
I just started learning Latin and am currently reading roma aeterna and came across the following sentence:
Romani cotidie in thermas illas celebres lavatum eunt
AFAIK this could mean both:
The ...
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Is the perfect passive always formed like so: verb + sum/es/est?
I'm using Wheelock's Latin and in the chapter which introduces the perfect passive system I came across this sentence:
"Ubi haec tragoedia recitāta est, senex sententiīs iūdicum est līberātus.&...
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Passive verbal noun, oblique cases
As far as I know, present infinitive is used as verbal noun for the nominative and accusative, and gerund is used as verbal noun in other oblique cases (genitive, dative and ablative).
I would like to ...
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Lingua Latina per se Illustrata, chapter 6, weird sentence with passive voice
In Exercitia Latina, part 1 in the exercises for this chapter there is the following sentence:
"Servi mali dominum timent neque a domino timentur."
I can not grasp its meaning. I can (...
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De passiva voce cum verbis quae casum dativum postulant
Quaestio mihi fuit dum scribebam sententiam quandam. Si vero verbum (quod deponens non est) postulat casum dativum (e.g., ignoscere), quomodo rectius scribitur in passiva voce?
Exempli gratia,
Nemo ...
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Why is ferebatur used instead of movebat in Gen. 1:2?
In the Douay-Rheims Baile, Gen. 1:2 is given as:
Terra autem erat inanis et vacua et tenebrae super faciem abyssi et spiritus Dei ferebatur super aquas.
The translation of the last clause is given as, ...
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Use of the passive voice in the verb exerceo
I am doing a lesson and the sentence and caption is as follows:
Robustus est quia exercetur.
Which seems intended to mean "He is strong because he trains." However, I don't understand why ...
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Use of passive imperative of transitive verbs
I am so happy to have found this community.
I have 2 imperative sentences:
Fenestram aperīre
and
Fenestram aperī
I wonder if the passive form is correct and how could be translated into English or ...
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Passive form of "One can not know"
This is an exercise in a book: We are asked to translate "one" using the passive voice for several sentences. Unfortunately, the exercise is not corrected.
One of those sentences is "...
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What form is 'numerārī'?
In chapter X of Orberg's Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata there is this sentence: Piscēs numerārī nōn possunt.
From the context I would translate this as an infinitive. But the infinitive should be ...
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On the formation of perfect passive infinitives
I Think I understand why the passive infinitive of " amo " is not " esse amatus" : "being loved" is not perfect ( without any play on words).
So we need something else ...
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Latin translation of "don't get caught"
I am looking for a translation of "don't get caught".
This phrase is the slogan of World Chase Tag (a tag competition), and it seems like they tried to put a Latin translation on their ...
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How to translate "The chapters must be studied well to pass the test."?
I want to know how such sentences are translated into latin when there is no subject.
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"cenacula dicuntur, ad quae scalis ascenditur" - why passive singular (ascenditur)?
According to Festus (can be found in L&S under cenaculum):
cenacula dicuntur, ad quae scalis ascenditur
While the overall meaning of the statement is quite clear (namely that the upper room that ...
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How would I translate the future passive for the verb Video, videre: to see? [closed]
I have to decline video, videre: to see in the future tense. Active and passive and then translate it. I am having a problem with the translation.
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Is spargier a valid passive present infintive of spargo?
I noticed that ignoro has the passive present infinitives ignōrārī, ignōrārier. This made me wonder if other verbs has the second -er version. The wiktionary page for spargo does not list a second one,...
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middle voice in Latin
Does the sequence esse plus past participle (of a non-deponent Verb) occure in middle function in latin? Is the middle function restricted to the mediopassive r-form in the imperfective tenses (...
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Infinitival impersonal passives
The impersonal passive is a familiar construction:
Pugnatur. "There is fighting / people are fighting / etc."
Pugnatum est. "There was fighting / etc."
Here a finite passive verb is being used ...
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The usage of present passive infinitive
In Augustine confessions we read:
"quid tibi sum ipse, ut amari te iubeas a me et, nisi faciam, irascaris mihi et mineris ingentes miserias?" (book I, cap. V)
I can't understand the usage of the ...
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Gone But Not Forgotten
On the Andrew Marr TV-prog (Sunday, 10/11/2019) General Sir Nicholas Carter was interviewed. When Marr asked about the declining interest in Remembrance-Day Commemorations, the general quoted ...
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Do non-deponent Latin verbs ever have a "middle voice"?
In Ancient Greek, verbs often take a "middle voice", neither active nor passive. The forms usually look identical to the passive on the surface, but can take direct objects and cannot take an agent (...
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Null expletive objects in Latin? "Cariotae cum ficis certandum habent" (Plin. Ep. 1,8)
How is the gerundive construction to be analyzed in the following example?
Cariotae cum ficis certandum habent. (Plin. Ep. 1,8)
'Dates have to fight with figs'.
Could you please provide me ...
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Why "amatus est" instead of "*amavitur"
Is there any diachronic reason whereby synthetic perfective passive forms like *amavitur (and similar ones) are not possible and analytic forms like amatus est (and similar ones) are selected instead? ...
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When did the infinitive in -ier fall out of use?
At one point, the Latin passive infinitive was formed with a suffix -(r)ier, as in agier "to be driven", amārier "to be loved".
Allen and Greenough call this an "ancient form[…] found chiefly in ...
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On the absence of impersonal passives of deponent verbs
In a previous post there's a discussion on an intriguing example of a passive construction of a transitive (allegedly) deponent verb: Ab amīcīs hortārētur (Did Latin have any ergative verbs? ). The ...
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Is there a gerundive of "faciō"?
Faciō, "to make" or "to do", is a common Latin verb. It's famous for being suppletive: it's missing most of its passive forms, and instead uses the active forms of the separate verb fiō "to become". (...
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Is the third person passive perfect of a verb a source of nouns, e.g. "benedictus" from "bendico"?
I always get confused with benedictus. It Christian prayers, it is found both as a noun and as a (passive) verb, e.g. benedictus est. When est is omitted (not uncommon in Latin, it seems), both look ...
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How does one "imitate into everything"?
"Good King Wenceslas" is a classic Christmas song, but its melody was taken from an older song: "Tempus Adest Floridum", from the Finnish carol book Piae Cantiones ("Pious Songs").
The first few ...
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Why is dignetur used as if it were in the active voice?
For 2 Thessalonians 1:11, the Vulgata has the following:
In quo etiam oramus semper pro vobis: ut dignetur vos vocatione sua
Deus nosteret impleat omnem voluntatem bonitatis, et opus fidei in
...
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Latin passive endings: Why is -mini sticking out
The Latin passive ending usually feature an additional letter R compared to the active endings: laud-or, -aris, -atur, -amur, -antur. However, the second person plural is different, using the ending -...
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Passive Subjunctive Translated as Active
Moreland has this line:
Cognoscebamus quo tempore dux mortem illis patriam neglegentibus minatus esset
This is an indirect question, hence the sequence of tenses: main verb takes Imperfect; ...
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How to make a deponent passive in meaning?
I was thinking about the verb sequi, a deponent which means to follow. I was wondering, how do you put the deponent into a passive form?
So is it possible to translate the following sentences into ...
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Is there a passive infinitive?
If I say something can be changed, for example, how would I say that in Latin? Would I say id X potest, or is there some other construction for this? The context doesn't really matter, but it's for my ...
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When to use -ris vs. -re as a passive verbal ending
Anyone who has read Cicero's famous line,
Quo usque tandem, Catalina, abutere patientia nostra?
...knows that the 2nd person singular passive personal ending "-ris" is often changed to "-re":
...
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Passives Without Accusatives
(Split off from my previous question about gerundives of deponent verbs.)
For a transitive verb, it's fairly simple to convert a sentence from active to passive:
X-nom VERB-active Y-acc = Y-nom ...
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How do I use gerundives of obligation for deponent verbs?
(Inspired by the comments on this answer.)
The gerundive of obligation is a wonderful little idiom in Latin, as in Cato's famous mantra
Carthāgō dēlenda est "Carthage must be destroyed"
In this ...
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Hogwarts Motto from J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter" series
Hogwarts, the School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the Harry Potter books, has the following Latin motto: Draco dormiens numquam titillandus.
Most online sources translate this as "Never tickle a ...
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Why is "repetunt" 3rd pl active in Luke 12:20 (Vulgate)?
I was reading today's gospel from the Roman calendar and noticed this in Luke 12:20:
dixit autem illi Deus stulte hac nocte animam tuam repetunt a te quae autem parasti cuius erunt
I was struck by ...
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Divide and be conquered
Sometimes, when you divide something into many pieces, the many pieces overwhelm you, like what happened to Mickey Mouse in Fantasia. This suggests a variation on divide et vinces:
Divide et ...
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Active verbs with passive meanings
Every beginning Latin-learner is familiar with the idea of deponent verbs: verbs that have passive forms but active meanings.
I am curious about a small subset of Latin verbs that aren't just ...
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Agent of passive sentence in accusative
In the following clause the agent is in the accusative, not ablative. Why?
quod Civitas Aquilegensis et oppida Sancti Viti A. et Sancti Danielis in dicta patria consistentia cum omnibus eorum ...
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Does there exist an passive form of sum, esse, fui?
I've never seen anything except this provide passive forms of the verb esse. And even with that most of the passive forms are crossed out. Why is this? It would make sense for there to be no passive ...
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Why is the passive participle in Matthew 10:1 rendered as active in English?
I'm a little confused by the clause that begins Matthew 10:
10:1 Et convocatis duodecim discipulis suis, dedit illis potestatem spirituum immundorum, ut ejicerent eos, et curarent omnem languorem,...
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Perfect passive forms like "amatus fuit"
The normal way of forming the perfect passive system is: perfect passive participle + a form from the present system of sum, e.g. amatus est, amatus erat, amatus sit, amatus esset.
But one ...
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Instances of the future passive infinitive
Throughout my time studying Latin in school, one grammatical construction in particular has always intrigued me to an extent — the future passive infinitive (eg. amatum iri). Whenever it came up (...
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Can I passivize a verb with two objects with respect to either one?
If I have a transitive verb with one object, passivizing an active sentence is straightforward.
For example, "te amo" becomes "(a me) amaris".
But how to passivize a verb that has two objects?
For ...
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