Short passive participles

Short passive participles are essential for expressing that something has been done or is in a certain state. They can almost exclusively be formed from transitive verbs (verbs that take a direct object in the accusative case). While most are derived from full past passive participles (expressing completed actions), short present passive participles also exist (expressing continuous states, e.g., уважаем, любим). They are formed by dropping the long endings. Note that past passive participles are formed from the infinitive or past stem, whereas present passive participles are formed from the present tense stem.

1. Formation:
Past Passive Participles:

• Suffix -н: Used for verbs ending in -ать or -ять. (прочитать → прочитан)
• Suffix -ен/-ён: Used for verbs ending in -ить, -еть, or consonants. Note that -и- and -е- are dropped and consonants often mutate. For -ить verbs, these mutations typically match the first-person singular (я-form) of the verb (купить → куплю → куплен). For verbs with 'д', both д → жд (освободить → освобождён) and д → ж (посадить → посажен, обидеть → обижен) can occur depending on the verb's history. Note that some verbs simply drop the -и- or -е- and retain their stem consonant without mutation (увидеть → увиден).
• Suffix -т: Used for certain one-syllable verbs, verbs ending in -оть or -ыть, or those in -нуть. (открыть → открыт, мыть → мыт, колоть → колот)

Present Passive Participles:

• Suffix -ем / -ом: Used for Type I conjugation verbs. (уважать → уважаем, вести → ведом)
• Suffix -им: Used for Type II conjugation verbs. (любить → любим)

Note: Many verbs (especially imperfective ones, but also some common perfective ones like полюбить) do not form passive participles.

2. Spelling Rule:
Short passive participles (expressing an action) are always written with a single -н- (e.g., прочитан, сделано), unlike their full forms which often have double -нн- (прочитанный). However, it is crucial to distinguish them from short deverbal adjectives (expressing a characteristic), which retain the double -нн- in their feminine, neuter, and plural forms (the masculine singular always takes a single -н-, making it visually identical to the masculine short participle). Compare: Девочка воспитана бабушкой (The girl was raised by her grandmother — action, participle, one Н) vs. Девочка умна и воспитанна (The girl is smart and well-mannered — characteristic, adjective, two Нs), but Мальчик умён и воспитан (The boy is smart and well-mannered — characteristic, masculine singular adjective, one Н).

3. Agreement:
The participle must match the subject's gender and number:

• Masculine: -∅ (закрыт)
• Feminine: -а (закрыта). Note that the stress frequently shifts to the final -а in the feminine form (создан → создана).
• Neuter: -о (закрыто)
• Plural: -ы (закрыты)

4. Syntactic Role and Tense:
Short participles function exclusively as predicates (сказуемое). They do not decline for case; they only change by gender and number. In the present, no auxiliary verb is used. In the past and future, use the auxiliary verb быть (был/была/было/были or будет/будут). Unlike full adjectives or nouns, short participles do not take the instrumental case after the verb быть in the past or future.

5. The Agent:
If you want to mention who performed the action, use the instrumental case without a preposition.