When Does A Deponent Verb Return to its Passive Roots?

1. Can deponent verbs be passive?
2. Where do deponent verbs come from?
3. What endings do deponent verbs have?

Can deponent verbs be passive?

RULE 1: Deponent verbs are passive in form but active in meaning (and expectation), with the following exceptions: 1) Active forms with active meanings: a) present active participle, e.g. loquens "speaking"; b) future active participle (and infinitive), e.g. locuturus (esse) "(to be) about to speak."

Where do deponent verbs come from?

Most of the time, deponent verbs in Latin come from the Indo-European middle voice, which had pretty much completely died out by Classical Latin times.

What endings do deponent verbs have?

Regular, non-deponent verbs have active principal parts by default. So their first principal part ends in -ō. Deponent verbs only have passive endings, so their first principal part ends in -or. Notice as well that deponent verbs only have three principal parts, instead of the standard four.