Talk:Latin/Lesson 3-Passive

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See (external) for a table of the passive voice.

(Please feel free to use Google when this textbook doesn't cover something.)

See also: (external--sister project) for usage of the passive voice.

Now let's discuss the Wikipedia entry: "When the subject is the agent or actor of the verb, the verb is said to be in the active voice. When the subject is patient, target or undergoer of the action, it is said to be in the passive voice. For example, "The cat ate the mouse" is active, but "The mouse was eaten by the cat" is passive.

In a passive voice sentence, the subject and the direct object switch places. The direct object is promoted to subject, and the subject is demoted to a complement (that may be left out).

In English, the passive voice is a periphrastic construction, i .e. it's modelled using an ad hoc phrase structure with a different word order, an auxiliary verb and a participle of the main verb. In other languages, such as Latin, the passive voice is simply marked on the verb as an inflection."

Always form words in the passive voice based on the present_stem, and then inflect it using the personal ending. Memorize the infinitives first, starting with the 3rd conjugation.

What is meant by the usage of "inflect" (I know it's a verb)?
In a Slashdot article, it was commented that using Wikipedia, and by extension Wikibooks requires "Wikipedia thinking"--in other words, concepts may be introduced in several different ways, by several different people--some more trustworthy than others.

In this instance, inflect is the generic verb for either conjugating a verb or declining a noun. In this chapter, we discuss conjugating verbs into the passive voice, because to conjugate is to work with infinitives. Conjugating into the passive voice uses a different set of infinitives.

Exercise # 1: Change active infinitives to passive infinitives.  Exercise # 2: List personal endings 10 times for sureity. Exercise # 3: See whether you can conjugate. Check your answers, and ask for help on the reference desk if you need it.