Deponent Participle or Passive? The Case of 'hortatus'
Mock translation passage, 8 lines: 'Hortatus suos dux, signum dedit; progressi deinde ad flumen, milites castra posuerunt.' A candidate translates: 'Having been encouraged by his men, the leader gave the signal; then, having been advanced to the river, the soldiers pitched camp.' The teacher marks two errors. The candidate knows that deponent verbs are passive in form but active in meaning, yet thought that participles followed a different rule when a noun follows. The teacher points out that 'hortatus suos' has a direct object, 'suos', and that 'progressi' has no object but is intransitive deponent. The class has been drilling participles for a week, and the candidate is frustrated because the endings look identical to passive participles. The candidate must correct the translation and explain a reliable diagnostic, including one case where the passive form really is passive.
1. Identify both participles and explain why the candidate's passive renderings are wrong. Use syntax, not just a list of deponent verbs.
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'hortatus' is the perfect participle of the deponent 'hortor', active in meaning: 'having encouraged'. The clue is the direct object 'suos': a passive participle could not take an accusative direct object in that way. 'progressi' is the perfect participle of the deponent 'progredior', intransitive: 'having advanced/set out'. It has no object, so syntax alone does not prove active voice; the verb's deponent status does. But 'having been advanced' is impossible because 'progredi' is intransitive and cannot be passive in that sense. The candidate's error is treating passive form as passive meaning for every participle. Deponent participles keep active meaning in all tenses: 'hortatus', 'hortans', 'hortaturus'.
2. Give a corrected translation of the whole passage. Then state a diagnostic that works for most deponent participles, and one exception or trap.
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'Having encouraged his men, the leader gave the signal; then, having advanced to the river, the soldiers pitched camp.' Diagnostic: check voice with the verb's dictionary entry. If the principal parts show a passive form with an active meaning (e.g., 'hortor, hortari, hortatus sum'), the perfect participle is active. Also check for an accusative object: an object after the participle strongly supports active meaning. Trap: some verbs are semi-deponent (e.g., 'audeo, audere, ausus sum'), where the perfect participle is active but the present system is active in form. Another trap: a perfect participle of a transitive non-deponent verb is passive ('monitus' = 'warned'), so do not assume every '-tus' form is deponent.
3. A classmate says 'hortatus' could still be passive because 'suos' might be governed by 'dux'. How would you answer in an exam comment?
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'suos' cannot be governed by 'dux' in a way that makes 'hortatus' passive; 'dux' is nominative and 'hortatus' agrees with it. If 'hortatus' were passive, 'suos' would need another verb to govern it, and there is none in the phrase. The word order 'Hortatus suos dux' is common: participle + object + subject. The sense 'having been encouraged by his men' would require an ablative of agent, e.g., 'a suis hortatus', and even then the verb would not be deponent. In an exam comment, cite the object and the dictionary entry, not just the ending. If the form were 'hortatus' from a non-deponent verb, it would be passive; the verb's lexical identity decides.