Relative Tense and Translating Participles
The tense of a participle is relative to the tense of the main verb of the sentence to which it belongs. In this sense, the tense of a participle functions like the tense of an infinitive; neither is absolute, but it depends on the tense of the main verb.
- A present participle indicates an action that happens at the same time as the action of the main verb.
- A perfect participle indicates an action that is completed by or done prior to the time of the action of the main verb.
- A future participle indicates an action that has yet to happen when the action of the main verb is occurring.
This relativity of tense is important to keep in mind when translating participles in more creative ways than “-ing”, “having been (blank)ed”, and “about/going to (blank).” Take a look at this sentence that includes two participles:
The song, having been sung, is being memorized by the students, going to learn.
Try saying this previous sentence out loud and notice how stilted it sounds. We have two participles, respectively a perfect passive and a future active, but their literal translations make the sentence choppy and disjointed.
When it comes to translating participles, it is not technically incorrect to translate literally, but you are strongly encouraged to translate more creatively in one of the other ways about to be described, keeping in mind the idea that participle tense is relative; you must reflect the relationship of time accurately in your translation.
1. literal
When in doubt, fall back on the “-ing”, “having been (blank)ed”, or “about/going to (blank)” translation – not ideal, but not necessarily wrong.
- carmen cantum pulchrum erat. The song, having been sung, was beautiful.
2. relative clause
We will learn about relative clauses later, but as a quick primer, relative clauses are dependent clauses introduced by “who,” “which,” or “that” that modify a noun in the sentence. For example, “We do not believe the boy who cried wolf.” The phrase “who cried wolf” tells us more information about the boy: which boy? The one who cried wolf.
Because a participle is a verbal adjective that modifies a noun, we can use a relative clause to convey the verbal action, as long as we reflect the correct relationship of time. For example, take the sample sentence from #1 above:
- carmen cantum pulchrum erat. The song, having been sung, was beautiful.
The participle cantum is perfect tense, so that indicates an action that is completed by the time the main verb erat occurs. erat is imperfect, a past tense.
- carmen cantum pulchrum erat. The song, which had been sung, was beautiful.
The action of the song being sung happened before the action of the main verb “was”. Note what happens to the translation, however, when I change the tense of the main verb:
- carmen cantum pulchrum est. The song, which was sung, is beautiful.
I changed erat to est, the present tense; as a result, it suffices to translate cantum as a simple past tense, because that action is completed by the time the action of the main verb “is” occurs.
Some more examples from other parts of this module, re-translated with a relative clause:
- milēs ā duce urbem regentī interfectus est. - The soldier was killed by the leader who was ruling the city. (ruling happens at the same time as being killed, in the past)
- frātrēs ā patre eōrum missōs vīdimus. - We saw the brothers, who had been sent by their father. (being sent happens before the action of seeing)
- vir consilium familiae suae datūrus domum venit. - The man who will / is going to give advice to his family is coming home. (giving advice will happen after the action of coming home)
3. subordinate clause
We can also translate the participle using a dependent clause introduced by an appropriate subordinating conjunction. Depending on the context of the sentence and how the participle works into that content, we can use various types of conjunctions. For example, if a present participle indicates a temporal relationship, we can use “while”; if a perfect participle indicates a temporal relationship, we can use the conjunction “after.” For either, we can also use “when.” If the participle describes why the action of the main verb happened, we can use “because.” The future active participle is usually better translated with a relative clause or with a sense of purpose; we’ll learn about the latter later (but take a look at the example below).
- milēs ā duce urbem regentī interfectus est. - The soldier was killed by the leader when he was ruling the city.
- milēs ā duce urbem regentī interfectus est. - The soldier was killed by the leader while he was ruling the city.
- frātrēs ā patre eōrum missōs vīdimus. - We saw the brothers after they had been sent by their father.
- vir consilium familiae suae datūrus domum venit. - The man is coming home in order to give advice to his family.
Depending on the context, you might be able to use other subordinating conjunctions in translation, like “since” for participles that straddle the line between explaining time and cause of the main verb; “because” if the participle explains for what reason the action of the main verb happened (see the section on causal clauses); or “although” if the participial action introduces an obstacle to the completion of the main verb (see the section on concessive clauses).
- urbs, ā rege horribilī recta, cum mortuus est laeta fuit. - The city, because it had been ruled by the horrible king, was happy when he died.
In general, it is preferable to try one of these more creative translations of the participle than to use the default translation. The goal is to create a translation that flows smoothly in English; the default translations tend to break that flow up!