passive voice vs. passive participle

After doing a few translations, I realized that I can’t distinguish between passive voice and perfect passive.

Consider this example:

A quo praemium datum est? “By whom was the reward given?” (perfect passive)

I think this can work in the passive voice, as well:

A quo praemium daratur? “By whom was the reward given?”

Does the passive voice work or not, and if it does, how can I choose between the two when translating from English to Latin?

Perhaps Wheelock has something to do with it. In his translation of the passive voice, he brushes aside “being” through parentheses: “I was (being) warned, I was (being) praised,” etc. In English, “being” adds a sense of continuity that is optional for the passive voice, but is not always necessary. Perhaps in Latin, although “being” is idiomatically absent, it is always understood to imply continuity. So, would this be the way to distinguish between passive voice and perfect passive.. that is, by the presence of “being” in the English sentence ?

For example: “What was neglected by the second student yesterday?” I translated, “Quid neglegabatur ab altero discipulo heri?” Now, should I have translated it through the perfect passive because there is no “being” to qualify “neglected,” or is my translation totally wrong for some other reason?

As it is, I seem to be choosing almost arbitrarily between perfect voice and perfect passive, because I can’t see any difference in the sense/meaning of the two.

Any help is appreciated !

\

  • Alex

I would say that both datum est and dabatur are in the passive voice but the first is in the perfect tense and the second is in the imperfect tense, so saying that datum est = “was given” and dabatur = “was being given” gives a decent but rough idea of what the difference is. But the difference between the two forms is the same as the difference between perfect and imperfect in the active voice.

A quo praemium daratur? “By whom was the reward given?”

I think you mean dabatur here? In that case, A quo praemium dabatur? would be better translated. as “By whom was the reward being given?”

For example: “What was neglected by the second student yesterday?” I translated, “Quid neglegabatur ab altero discipulo heri?” Now, should I have translated it through the perfect passive because there is no “being” to qualify “neglected,” or is my translation totally wrong for some other reason?

It would’ve been more accurate to use neglictum est because negligebatur (you had a slight mistake in your form) does, as you said, suggests an action that was on-going or in process, i.e. “was being neglected.”

Hope that helps,
Thymios

thank you, that was very helpful !