PARTICIPLES

There are two types of participles in English and each type is used in a variety of ways.

Present Participles

The first type of participle is the present participle. The present participle is often referred to as the '-ing' form of the verb. Here are some examples of present participles in bold:

~     The sun was shining so I went for a walk.

~     The man speaking English is our teacher.

~     That movies was extremely exciting.

It is often confused with the gerund which is also casually referred to as the 'ing' form of the verb. The difference between the gerund and the present participle can be confusing.

Past Participles

Past participles are used in a similar manner to present participles. Here are some examples of past participles in bold:

~     He has flown to Chicago twice.

~     The broken spirited boy returned home without a prize.

~     That man looks lost.

Participles are used for four main purposes:

v  As the main verb in tenses

v  As adjectives to describe a noun

v  As adverbs to describe how something is done

v  In phrases that look like clauses combined to provide additional, defining information

v  Participles Used as the Main Verb

Participles are used with auxiliary verbs in a variety of tenses. It is important to remember that the changes in the conjugation of the verb are made to the auxiliary verb. The participle form remains the same. Next, learn which tenses take the present participle or past participle form.

ü  Present Participles

Present participles are used for continuous (or progressive) tenses. These include the present continuous, past continuous and future continuous.

Present Continuous	They are watching TV at the moment.
Past Continuous	Mary was talking on the telephone when I came home.
Future Continuous	I'll be playing golf tomorrow at three o'clock.
Present Perfect Continuous	He has been working in the garden for twenty minutes.
Past Perfect Continuous	They had been waiting for thirty minutes when he finally arrived.
Future Perfect Continuous	Jack will have been studying for four hours by six o'clock

ü  Past Participles

Past participles are used with simple perfect tenses (continuous perfect or progressive perfect tenses take the participle 'been' + the present participle - have been playing, will have been working, etc.).

Present Perfect	She's already eaten lunch.
Past Perfect	They had left for California before she called.
Future Perfect	I will have bought the clothes by tomorrow evening

Past participles are also used in all passive voice sentences. To quickly review the passive voice structure:

ü  Passive Subject + be (conjugated) + past participle

Present passive	Tom was taught by Frankie
Past passive	My car was made in Germany.
etc.

v  Participles Used as Adjectives

Participles can also be used as adjectives to describe nouns. The difference between the present participle and the past participle can make quite a difference in meaning:

~     The bored man went to sleep during the discussion.

~     The boring man put other people to sleep during the discussion.

In the first sentence the past participle 'bored' is used to mean that the man himself was bored, in the second sentence the present participle 'boring' is used to mean that the man was boring to others.

v  Participles Used as Adverbs

The present participle is sometimes used as an adverb to describe the manner in which a verb is performed. Here are a few examples:

~        She taught pounding the grammar into their heads!

~        Angelo works considering all angles.

Notice how the present participle could be preceded with 'by' to give the same meaning:

~        She taught (by) pounding the grammar into their heads     

~        Angelo works (by) considering all angles.

v  Participles Used like Clauses

Finally, participles are also used in short phrases that function as clauses. In some cases, the phrase containing the participle drops the relative pronoun:

~        Who's that boy playing the piano? - (Who is that boy who playing the piano?)

~        That's the man remembered by his friends. - (That is the man who was remembered by his friends.)

These structures can also introduce sentences with either the present participle or the past participle:

~        Spending all his free-time in the library, he continued to learn outside of class.

~        Left alone with no where to go, Mary decided to return home a few days ear