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The participles of compound tenses have been the subject of special treatment among grammarians of Romance languages since the Renaissance. Such forms raise a fairly specific issue since their properties do not appear to be compatible with the class of participles as the Latin tradition defines it. Some suggest recategorizing these words by giving them a new designation or assigning them to a new class with more suitable properties. This study brings together a series of texts (15th-18th centuries) in which theoretical options are proposed, and it highlights the importance of recategorization for dealing with data that challenge the Latin descriptive model. Furthermore, the recurrence and commensurability of theoretical solutions in various traditions show the interest of going beyond the framework of national histories.