Latin/Participles Lesson 2

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Present Active Participle

In the previous lesson we looked at the Perfect Passive Participle, or PPP, as it is used both for the perfect passive verb tenses, and in the new-to-us form of adjectival modifier. This lesson we will examine the Present Active Participle. It is always active, and it is essentially identical to a 3rd declension adjective, with just a few quirks. The following sample verbs are shown as participles in nom. s. and gen. s.

Participles formed from sample verbs:

Latin	English	Notes
1st amō – amāns, amantis	loving
2nd moneō – monēns, monentis	warning
3rd mittō – mittēns, mittentis	sending
3rd capiō – capiēns, capientis	taking
4th audiō – audiēns, audientis	hearing

Deponent verbs can have present participles:

sequor – sequēns (following)

orior – oriēns (rising; perhaps you remember oriens and occidens as east and west from a previous lesson).

Some irregular verbs have this participle as well;

volēns (willing),

nolēns (unwilling),

ferēns (bearing/bringing).

The irregular verb “eō” along with its compounds is particularly weird:

iēns, euntis (going).

Declension of present active participles is similar to 3rd declension adjectives, always having the i-stem endings in nom. and acc pl. n., and gen pl; nom s. n. is the same as m. and f., and acc. s. n. is the same as nom. s. n. The biggest difference is the e ending for ablatives, instead of -i as it is in 3rd decl. adjectives.:

Case	S (m-f/n)	P (m-f/n)	English
Nominative	amāns	amantēs/amantia	loving
Genitive	amantis	amantium	of loving
Dative	amantī	amantibus	to / from loving
Accusative	amantem/amāns	amantes/amantia	loving
Ablative	amante	amantibus	by / with / from loving

If you spend enough time studying Latin verbs, you will see the roots of many English nouns derived from them. For example, “president” is from the verb praesideō = sit in front of, preside over; literally praesidēns means “the person sitting in front of/presiding over”. In modern Latin usage praesidens and praeses are both used to mean someone holding the office of president. An “agent” is a person given authority for acting. A “docent” is a person with teaching responsibilities. Protestants are people who protest. Intermittent, magnificent, convenient, solvent, and evident also derive from participles.

We hope you will forgive us for only inventing a few sentences for this lesson. We hope that by giving you several examples of participles used in real Latin texts you will get a good sense of Latin idiom however. Some of them are appropriate for the Christmas season.

New Vocabulary

Latin	English	Audio (Classical)	Notes
praeses, praesidis praesidēns, praesidentis	president
praesideō, praesidēre, praesīdī, 2	sit in front of, preside over, protect
reddō, reddere, reddidī, redditus, 3	give back, restore, render
sapiō, sapere, sapīvī, 3	taste of, have sense, understand

New Sentences

Latin	English	Notes
Lūcia māter amāns est.	Lucia is a loving mother.
Mārcus avem volantem super montēs vīdit.	Marcus saw the bird flying over the mountains.
Hoc dicēns, Gāius gladium dēposuit.	Saying this, Gaius put down his sword. (Hoc is the object of dicens, which is in the nominative to agree with the subject, Gaius.)
Mortuī sunt pugnantēs.	They died fighting.
Mīlitēs hostēs fugientēs secutī sunt.	The soldiers followed the fleeing enemy.
Eōs flūmen trānseuntēs vīdimus.	We saw them going across the river.
Homō sapiēns	human being; man with understanding, wise man
Modus ponēns, modus tollēns	Mode of affirming (putting in place), mode of denying (taking away).
Et pastorēs erant in regiōne eādem vigilantēs, et custodientēs vigiliās noctis super gregem suum. (Luke 2:8)	And there were shepherds in the same region, staying awake and keeping watch over their flock by night.
Et hoc vōbis signum: inveniētis īnfantem pannīs involūtum, et positum in præsepiō. Et subitō facta est cum angelō multitūdō mīlitiæ cælestis laudantium Deum, et dīcentium …	And this is a sign to you: you will find the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, and placed in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying…	Luke 2:12-13 involutum and positum are both perfect passive participles, agreeing with īnfantem in the acc. s. m., laudantium and dīcentium are both present active participles, agreeing with militiae caelestis in the gen. pl.
Tunc Herodēs vidēns quonium illūsus esset ā magīs, irātus est valdē, et mittēns occīdit omnēs puerōs quī erant in Bēthlehem. (Matthew 2:16)	Then Herod, seeing that he had been tricked by the wise men, was very angry, and sending, he killed all the boys who were in Bethlehem.
Caput aprī dēferō, reddēns laudēs Dominō.	I bring the boar’s head, rendering praises to the Lord.	from the Boar’s Head carol.
Volēns et potēns!	Willing and able!
Amantēs sunt amentēs. (Terence)	Lovers are insane (out of their minds).
Locum tenēns	a person/thing holding the place
Deō volente	if God is willing	This is an example of the ablative absolute construction, which, d.v., we hope to explore further soon

Practice

Practice and learn the words and phrases in this lesson
Step one	First learn the words using this lesson: Participles vocabulary
Step two	Next try learning and writing the sentencing using this: Participles Sentences
Note that the Memrise stage covers the content for all lessons in each stage. If you are skipping previous stages you may need to manually "ignore" the words in previous levels (use the 'select all' function)

Bonam fortūnam et laetitiam in novō annō vōbīs optō!

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