Participle

Hello, students! Today, we’re diving into an essential part of English grammar: participles. These versatile little helpers make our sentences more descriptive and allow us to form some of the most important tenses. Let’s break it down step by step so it’s easy to understand. 😊

What Is a Participle?

A participle is a form of a verb that can act as:

• • An adjective describes a noun.
  • A helper for forming verb tenses like the perfect and continuous tenses.

For example:

• • As an adjective: The running water is cold.
  • In a verb tense: She is running in the park.

Every verb has participle forms, and there are two main types of participles in English:

• • Present participle
  • Past participle

Let’s explore both of these in detail!

Types of Participles

1. Present Participle

The present participle is the form of the verb ending in -ing. It’s used to:

• • Show an ongoing action in continuous tenses.
  • Describe nouns as an adjective.

Examples of present participles:

• • Verb: eat → Present participle: eating
  • Verb: swim → Present participle: swimming

How it’s used:

1. In continuous tenses

• • I am reading a book.
  • They were playing football.

2. As an adjective

• • Look at the shining stars.
  • The crying baby needed attention.

Rules for forming present participles:

• For most verbs, add -ing to the base verb:
  • walk → walking
  • jump → jumping
• For verbs ending in -e, drop the -e and add -ing:
  • make → making
  • dance → dancing
• For verbs ending in a single vowel + consonant, double the consonant and add -ing:
  • run → running
  • sit → sitting

2. Past Participle

• • In perfect tenses to show completed actions.
  • In the passive voice.
  • As an adjective to describe completed actions.

Examples of past participles:

• Regular verbs: add -ed:
• walk → walked
• play → played
• Irregular verbs have unique forms:
• go → gone
• see → seen

How it’s used:

1. In perfect tenses

• • • She has finished her homework.
    • They had seen the movie before.

2. In the passive voice

• • • The book was written by a famous author.
    • The cake was baked yesterday.

3. As an adjective

• • • The broken vase was on the floor.
    • His tired eyes showed he hadn’t slept.

Participial Phrases

A participial phrase is a group of words that starts with a participle and describes a noun in the sentence.

Examples:

• • Running through the park, she tripped over a rock.
    (The phrase “Running through the park” describes “she.”)
  • Exhausted from the journey, he fell asleep quickly.
    (The phrase “Exhausted from the journey” describes “he.”)

Using Participles in Tenses

Continuous Tenses (with Present Participles)

Present participles are used with forms of the verb “to be” to create continuous tenses.

1. Present Continuous:

• • I am reading a book.
  • She is dancing.

2. Past Continuous:

• • They were playing chess.
  • He was studying all night.

3. Future Continuous:

• • We will be traveling tomorrow.
  • She will be working late.

Perfect Tenses (with Past Participles)

Past participles are used with forms of have to create perfect tenses.

1. Present Perfect:

• • They have eaten dinner.
  • I have finished my homework.

2. Past Perfect:

• • By the time we arrived, she had left.
  • He had completed the project.

3. Future Perfect:

• • I will have finished the book by tomorrow.
  • They will have arrived by noon.

Avoiding Mistakes: Dangling Participles

A dangling participle happens when the participle or participial phrase is not clearly connected to the noun it describes. This can make the sentence confusing!

Example of a dangling participle:

• • Running down the street, the car honked loudly.
    (This makes it sound like the car is running!)

Corrected version:

• • Running down the street, I heard the car honk loudly.

Practice Time!

Find the participles in these sentences and identify if they are present or past participles:

1. The crying child held her mother’s hand.

2. He has written three books this year.

3. Burned by the sun, she decided to stay inside.

4. The dog is barking at the door.

5. They were walking home when it started raining.

Answers:

1. crying – Present participle

2. written – Past participle

3. burned – Past participle

4. barking – Present participle

5. walking – Present participle