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

A participle is formed from a verb but looks and behaves like an adjective. This means that it agrees with the noun it modifies in number, case and gender.

In Latin three kinds of participle exist: the present, perfect and future.

Tense	Active	Passive	English
Present	audiens, audientis	–	hearing
Perfect	–	auditus, -a, -um	heard
Future	auditurus, -a, -um	–	intending / about to hear

Present participle

Present participles decline in the following way, which is similar to a third declension adjective.

	Masculine/Feminine		Neuter
	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Nominative	-ns	-ntes	-ns	-ntia
Accusative	-ntem	-ntes	-ns	-ntia
Genitive	-ntis	-ntium	-ntis	-ntium
Dative	-nti	-ntibus	-nti	-ntibus
Ablative	-nti	-ntibus	-nti	-ntibus

To form the present participle for first, second and third conjugation verbs, remove ‘-re’ from the infinitive to get the stem and add the relevant ending above. For fourth conjugation verbs you will need to add an ‘-e’ to the stem before the endings.

For example:

Group	Infinitive	Present participle	English
1	amo, amare, amavi, amatum	amans, amantis	loving
2	habeo, habere, habui, habitum	habens, habentis	having
3	duco, ducere, duxi, ductum	ducens, ducentis	leading
	capio, capere, cepi, captum	capiens, capientis	taking
4	servio, servire, servivi, servitum	serviens, servientis	serving

A present participle describes an action or a state which is taking place at the same time as the action or state of the main verb. Just like all participles, it must agree with the noun it is describing.

For example:

puella    puellam (singular, feminine, accusative)

lacrimans    lacrimantem (singular, feminine, accusative)

Therefore:

vidi lacrimantem puellam

I saw the girl crying

I saw the crying girl

I saw the girl who was crying