Participle

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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, which however is a noun. Thus the word sleeping in Your job description does not include sleeping past noon is 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, there is 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

Arabic also has an active participle. It is based on the pattern: Faa'ilun (for males) and Faa'ilatun (for females). It has two meanings: 1) Describes the action of the verb, for example, "to write" becomes "writing". 2) Describes the characteristics of the verb on a person. For example, a writer.

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"

Latin participles decline like adjectives.

Old English

In Old English, present participles ended in -ende or -iende depending on verb class. In Middle English, various forms were used in different regions: -ende (SW, SE, Midlands), -inde (SW, SE), -and (N), -inge (SE). This latter form eventually fell together with the suffix -ing, used to form verbal nouns.
Past participles were marked with a ge- prefix, as is done today in Dutch and High German.

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 is being walked"), the semi-participle eidamas ("while [he is/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.

Interlingua

In Interlingua, active participles end in -nte. For example, dansa ("dances") gives dansante ("dancing"). Passive participles end in -te: dansate ("danced"). In Interlingua, like in English, the perfect aspect is formed using a form of the verb haber ("to have") plus the passive participle; for example, haber dansate is "to have danced".

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, such that we have marché "walked", été "been", vendu "sold", mis "placed", and fait "done". May require agreement.

The French present participle, however, is not used to mark the continuous aspect as it is 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 does not consider it a verbal form any longer, as they become adjectives or nouns on their own: e.g. 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 does not 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 regulary formed with one of the suffixes -ado, -ido, but several verbs have an irregular form ending in -to (e.g. escrito, visto), or -cho (e.g. dicho, hecho). The past participle is used generally as an adjective meaning a finished action, or to form the passive voice, and it is variable in gender and number in these uses; and also it is 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 Причастие and Деепричастие in Russian grammar, or Határozói igenév and Melléknévi igenév in Hungarian grammar. Also many Eskimo languages make such a distinction, see for details e.g. the sophisticated participle system of Sireniki Eskimo.

References

Participles from the American Heritage Book of English Usage (1996).

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Last updated on Thursday March 06, 2008 at 15:55:18 PST (GMT -0800)
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