Remember that participles are verbal adjectives. As verbs, the active participles can have direct objects (e.g., servus omnia parā ns [“the slave getting everything ready”]; servus omnia parā tū rus [“the slave about to get everything ready”]). The passive participles can have ablatives of means or agent to show who or what was responsible for the deed (e.g., mī les sagittā vulnerā tus [“the soldier wounded by an arrow”]). These are examples of participial phrases.

A participial phrase is a construction consisting of a noun (called a head noun), sometimes a complement (i.e., an object or prepositional phrase), then a participle. In Latin, participial phrases almost always take the form of a sandwich, with the head noun and participle as the bread, and whatever else you need — if anything — for the filler.

Even though a participial phrase expresses a thought that could, if rewritten, be expressed as a complete sentence, you need to recognize it as a discrete unit because it is only a phrase. Here is an example that illustrates what is meant by a “discrete unit.”

In this example, the participial phrase acts as the subject, so the head noun is in the nominative case, as is the participle that must agree with it. Participial phrases, however, can function in any case, not just the nominative. In the following example, our soldier is the direct object.

The whole phrase functions as the direct object of the main verb trahent and sits apart as a discrete unit. Also, since the whole phrase functions as the direct object, the head noun and participle are in the accusative, while the filler words are in whatever case they need to be in to do their job: fortem is masculine accusative singular to agree with its noun mī litem; sagittā is ablative (without a preposition) to show the means by which he was vulnerā tum.

The translation isn't much more mellifluous (mel, “honey”; fluī , “to flow”) when the participial phrase is inserted elsewhere: “They will pull the brave soldier, wounded by an arrow, from the field in the morning.”