After this column’s review these past three weeks of the infinitive and the gerund as well as their phrasal forms, we’ll now do a retrospective on
the participle and the participial phrase. Recall that the participle completes the troika of the so-called English
verbals—the infinitive, gerund, and participle. The first two can function as other parts of speech, but the participle can only work as an adjective.
The basic form of the participle is a verb that ends either in
“-ing” or
“-ed.” A participle that ends in
“-ing” is a
present participle, while a participle that typically ends in
“-ed” is a
past participle. Certain irregular verbs form past participles that end in
“-en” (as in “fallen”),
“-d” (“shaved”),
“-t” (“dealt”), or
“-n” (“seen”).
The
present participle expresses present action in relation to the time expressed by the operative verb of a sentence. For instance, in “The couple braved the
gathering storm,” the present participle “gathering” functions as an adjective modifying the noun “storm.” It is meant to convey the idea that the storm’s “gathering” action took place at the same time as the couple’s action in “braving” it.
Here are other examples of the present participle at work: “The
rotting branch finally fell.” “The reluctant candidate ended up
running.” “
Kneeling, the captive asked for mercy.” “She sold the house with her husband
not knowing.”
On the other hand, the
past participle expresses completed action in relation to the time expressed by the operative verb of a sentence. For instance, in the sentence “The family looked in horror at their
devastated house,” the past participle “devastated” functions as an adjective modifying the noun “house.” It is meant to convey the idea that demolition of the house had been completed before the family’s action of viewing it.
Here are other examples of the past participle at work: “They processed the
shaved portions of the logs into plywood.” “The
fallen dictator was sent to the gallows.” “The
dealt card was an ace.” “A total solar eclipse is a
rarely seen phenomenon.”
It’s important to also keep in mind that in English, the past participle is used in forming the perfect tenses in the active voice and in forming all of the tenses in the passive voice.
The
present perfect, which denotes action that began in the past but which continues into the present, is formed by preceding the past participle with “has” or “have” depending on whether the subject is singular or plural: “She
has learned her lessons well.” “We
have waited for nine years.”
The
past perfect, which denotes action that was completed in the past before another action took place, is formed by preceding the past participle with “had” regardless of whether the subject is singular or plural: “The son squandered the fortune that his father
had accumulated during his entire working life.” “By the time he arrived, his teammates
had left the stadium.”
The
future perfect, which denotes action that will have been completed at a specified future time, is formed by preceding the past participle with “will have” regardless of whether the subject is singular or plural: “By March, she
will have finished her doctoral dissertation.” “The soldiers
will have consumed their rations by this weekend.”
The
passive voice for all tenses is, of course, formed by preceding the past participle with the appropriate form of the verb “be.”
Present tense: “All seats for the matinee show
are taken.”
Present progressive tense: “A special holiday
is being celebrated by all chartered cities today.”
Past tense: “Their candidate
was trounced in the majority of voting precincts nationwide.”
Future tense: “Our planet can still be saved if further climate degradation
will be fought as the moral equivalent of war.”
(Next week:
The flexible positioning of participial phrases) May 26, 2022
This essay, 2099th of the series, appeared in the column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in the Campus Press section of the May 19, 2022 Internet edition of The Manila Times
, ©2022 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.Read this essay online in
The Manila Times:
The participial phrase as multiword adjectiveVisit Jose Carillo’s English Forum, http://josecarilloforum.com. You can follow me on Facebook and Twitter and e-mail me at j8carillo@yahoo.com.
