Participle Totally Explained

Everything about Participle totally explained

In linguistics, a participle (from Latin participium, a calque of Greek μετοχη "partaking") is a non-finite verb form that can be used in compound tenses or voices, or as a modifier. Participles often share properties with other parts of speech, in particular adjectives and nouns.

Participles in Modern English

English verbs have two participles. One, called variously the present, active, imperfect, or progressive participle, is identical in form to the gerund, and indeed the term present participle is sometimes used to include the gerund. The term gerund-participle is also used. The other participle, called variously the past, passive, or perfect participle, is usually identical to the verb's preterite (past tense) form, though in irregular verbs the two usually differ. Examples of participle formation include:

Verb	Preterite (past)	Past Participle	Present Participle	Regular/ Irregular
talk	talked		talking	regular
hire	hired		hiring	regular
do	did	done	doing	irregular
say	said		saying
eat	ate	eaten	eating
write	wrote	written	writing
beat	beat	beaten	beating
sing	sang	sung	singing

The present participle in English is active. It has the following uses:

forming the progressive aspect: Jim was sleeping.
modifying a noun: Let sleeping dogs lie.
modifying a verb or sentence: Broadly speaking, the project was successful. The present participle in English has the same form as the gerund, but the gerund acts as a noun rather than a verb or a modifier. The word sleeping in Your job description doesn't include sleeping is a gerund and not a present participle.

The past participle has both active and passive uses:

forming the perfect aspect: The chicken has eaten.

forming the passive voice: The chicken was eaten.

modifying a noun, active sense (certain intransitive verbs only): our fallen comrades

modifying a noun, passive sense: the attached files

modifying a verb or sentence, passive sense: Seen from this perspective, the problem presents no easy solution. As noun-modifiers, participles usually precede the noun (like adjectives), but in many cases they can or must follow it:

Please bring all the documents required.

The difficulties encountered were nearly insurmountable.

Participles in other languages

Sireniki Eskimo

Sireniki Eskimo language, an extinct Eskimo-Aleut language, has separate sets of adverbial participles and adjectival participles. Interestingly, adverbial participles are conjugated to reflect the person and number of their implicit subjects; hence, while in English a sentence like "If I were a marksman, we would kill walrus" requires two full clauses (in order to distinguish the two verbs' different subjects), in Sireniki Eskimo one of these may be replaced with an adverbial participle (since its conjugation will indicate the subject).

Arabic

The Arabic verb has two participles: an active participle (الاسم الفاعل) and a passive participle (الاسم المفعول به), and the form of the participle is predictable by inspection of the dictionary form of the verb (see Arabic grammar). These participles are inflected for gender, number and case, but not person. Arabic participles are employed syntactically in a variety of ways: as nouns, as adjectives or even as verbs. Their uses vary across varieties of Arabic. In general the active participle describes a property of the syntactic subject of the verb from which it's derived, whilst the passive participles describes the object. For example, from the verb كتب kataba, the active participle is kaatibun كاتب and the passive participle is maktuubun مكتوب. Roughly these translate to writing and written respectively. However, they've different, derived lexical uses. كاتب kaatibun is further lexicalized as writer, author and مكتوب maktuubun as letter.
In Classical Arabic these participles don't participate in verbal constructions with auxiliaries the same way as their English counterparts do, and rarely take on a verbal meaning in a sentence (a notable exception being participles derived from verbs of motion as well as participles in Qur'anic Arabic). In certain dialects of Arabic however, it's much more common for the participles, especially the active participle, to have verbal force in the sentence. For example, in dialects of the Levant, the active participle is a structure which describes the state of the syntactic subject after the action of the verb from which it's derived has taken place. Aakel, the active participle of akal (to eat), describes one's state after having eaten something. Therefore it can be used in analogous way to the English present perfect tense (for example,Ana aakel انا آكل meaning I have eaten, I have just eaten or I have already eaten). Other verbs, such as raaH راح (to go) give a participle (raayeH رايح) which has a progessive (is going...) meaning. The exact tense or continuity of these participles is therefore determined by the nature of the specific verb (especially its Aktionsart and its transitivity) and the syntactic/semantic context of the utterance. What ties them all together is that they describe the subject of the verb from which they're derived. The passive participles in certain dialects can be used as a sort of passive voice, but more often than not, are used in their various lexicalized senses as adjectives or nouns.

Latin

Compared with English, Latin has an additional future tense participle:

present active participle: educāns "teaching"

perfect passive participle: educatus "(having been) taught"

future active participle: educātūrus "about to teach"

future passive participle: educāndus "(necessary) to be taught"

Lithuanian

Among Indo-European languages, Lithuanian language is unique for having thirteen different participial forms of the verb, that can be grouped into five when accounting for inflection by tense. Some of these are also inflected by gender and case. For example, the verb eiti ("to go, to walk") has the active participle form einąs/einantis ("going, walking", present tense), the passive participle form einamas ("being walked", present tense), the adverbial participle einant ("while it's being walked"), the semi-participle eidamas ("while [heis/was] going, walking") and the participle of necessity eitinas ("that which needs to be walked"). The first three of those five are inflected by tense, while the active, passive and the semi- participles are inflected by gender and the active, passive and necessity ones are inflected by case.

French

There are two basic participles:

Present participle: formed with the verb root + ant, hence marchant "walking", étant "being"

Past participle: formation varies according to verb group, hence marché "walked", été "been", vendu "sold", mis "placed", and fait "done". The past participle requires agreement with the gender of any preceding direct object. The French present participle, however, isn't used to mark the continuous aspect as it's in English.
Compound participles are possible:

Present perfect participle: ayant appelé "having called", étant mort "having died"

Passive perfect participle: étant vendu "being sold, having been sold"

Spanish

In Spanish, the present or active participle (participio activo or participio de presente) of a verb is traditionally formed with one of the suffixes -ante, -ente or -iente, but modern grammar doesn't consider it a verbal form any longer, as they become adjectives or nouns on their own: for example amante "loving", viviente "living" or "live".
The continuous is constructed much as in English, using a conjugated form of estar (to be) plus the gerundio (sometimes called a verbal adverb or adverbial participle as it doesn't decline) with the suffixes -ando, -endo or -iendo: for example, estar haciendo means to be doing (haciendo being the gerundio of hacer, to do), and there are related constructions such as seguir haciendo meaning to keep doing (seguir being to continue).
The past participle (participio pasado or pasivo) is regularly formed with one of the suffixes -ado, -ido, but several verbs have an irregular form ending in -to (for example escrito, visto), or -cho (for example dicho, hecho). The past participle is used generally as an adjective meaning a finished action, or to form the passive voice, and it's variable in gender and number in these uses; and also it's used to form the compound tenses (as in English) in which it has only one form, the singular male one. Some examples:

As an adjective

las cartas escritas "the written letters"

In the passive voice

Los ladrones fueron capturados "The thieves were caught."

To form compound tenses

Ella ha escrito una carta. "She has written a letter."

Finnish

Verb: tehdä (to do)
Present active: tekevä
Present passive: tehtävä
Past active: tehnyt
Past passive: tehty
Agent participle (passive): tekemä (done by...)

Russian

Verb: слышать slyšat' (to hear, imperfective aspect)
   Present active: слышащий slyšaščij
Present passive: слышимый slyšimyj
Past active: слышавший slyšavšij
Past passive: слышанный slyšannyj
Adverbial present active: слыша slyša
Adverbial past active: слышав slyšav
   Verb: услышать (to hear, perfective aspect)
   Past active: услышавший uslyšavšyj
Past passive: услышанный uslyšannyj
Adverbial past active: услышав uslyšav

Bulgarian

Verb: правя pravja (to do, imperfective aspect)
Present active: правещ pravešt
Past active aorist: правил pravil
Past active imperfect: правел pravel
Past passive: правен praven
Adverbial present active: правейки pravejki
Verb: направя napravja (to do, perfective aspect)
Past active aorist: направил napravil
Past active imperfect: направел napravel
Past passive: направен napraven

Kinds of participles in various languages

Adverbial and adjectival

In some languages, a distinction between adverbial participle and adjectival participle can be made. Among these is Esperanto. See and in Russian grammar, or and in Hungarian grammar. Also many Eskimo languages make such a distinction, see for details for example the sophisticated participle system of Sireniki Eskimo.

Further Information

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