The solution to the middle voice conundrum is simpler than you might expect. There is a group of verbs that were used so often in middle voice and so rarely in active or passive voice that they abandoned their active forms and passive uses, keeping only their middle voice forms and middle voice sense. These verbs are called deponents.

When you learn your vocabulary, or run across deponents in your dictionary, they will be immediately obvious. Their principal parts all appear passive in form, but they still give you all the information you need to be able to conjugate them fully. For example:

The first principal part, morior, is the first person present tense. It tells you if the verb is an –iī verb, which mor io r is. The second principal part, morī, is the present infinitive. It tells you the conjugation of the verb. In this case, the ending –īsuggests third conjugation. The third principal part of a deponent verb does the work of the third and fourth principal parts of regular verbs. It is the first person singular perfect tense. Being a passive form, it includes the perfect passive participle.

The only trouble deponent verbs are likely to give you is if you forget that they are deponent. Their passive-looking forms and active-sounding meanings can be quite deceiving.