Participles
A participle is a verbal that is used as an adjective and most often ends in -ing or -ed. A participle is a verb form that can be used as an adjective, to create verb tense, or to create the passive voice.
There are two types of participles:
Present participle (ending -ing)
Past participle (usually ending -ed, -d, -t, -en, or -n).
Here are some present and past participles being used as adjectives:
| The Verb | The Present Participle | The Past Participle |
|---|---|---|
| To develope | the developing countries | the developed countries |
| To boil | the boiling water | the boiled water |
| To break | the breaking rules | the broken rules |
| To change | the changing weather | the changed weather |
We commonly use both present and past participle as adjective.
Jane finds spiders frightening
The highly entertained audience sat silently.
It was such a long, boring film, so I got bored.
The crying baby had a wet diaper.
The pavement was covered with broken glass.
We use participles as verb phrase with combination of auxiliary verb
They have been walking for an hour.
The movie is promptly beginning at 8:00 p.m.
The goats are milked twice a day.
Fans had camped outside the stadium to see the new transfer.
We can use present participles can as nouns, too. It can be the subjects, direct objects, indirect objects, objects of prepositions, and subject complements in sentences. Whenever a present participle functions as a noun, you call it a gerund.
The endings of this movie is disappointing.
Camping attracts people of all ages.
She likes singing so much among friends.
We do not use participles as adverbs, however, we can use them as adverb phrases to show how the subject or object of the sentence acts.
The little girl, crying, kept insisting.
She was so tired after her exams that she spent the next three days sleeping.
She walked back home singing.
He drinks his beer standing at the bar.
The old locomotive drove into the station whistling loudly.
Perfect participles are formed by using "having" with past participle (V3). If we use passive form, we just add been between have and past participle.
Examples:
Having seen
Having taken
Having seen
Having taken
Having read
Having been seen (Passive)
Having been taken (Passive)
Having been taken (Passive)
Having been read (Passive)
Dangling Participle
A "dangling" participle is one that is not clearly connected to the word it modifies: "Driving on the motorway, the baby started to cry." A better version of this example would be, "I was driving on the motorway, when the baby started to cry."
Coming out of the market, the bananas fell on the pavement.
I smelled the oysters while I was coming down the stairs for dinner.
I smelled the oysters coming down the stairs for dinner.
While I was standing at the corner, two children walked past me.
Standing at the corner, two children walked past me.
