participles

In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from a verb and used as an adjective, as in a ''laughing face''".

“Participle” is a traditional grammatical term from Greek and Latin that is widely used for corresponding verb forms in European languages and analogous forms in Sanskrit and Arabic grammar.

Cross-linguistically, participles may have a range of functions apart from adjectival modification. In European and Indian languages, the past participle is used to form the passive voice. In English, participles are also associated with periphrastic verb forms (continuous and perfect) and are widely used in adverbial clauses. In non-Indo-European languages, ‘participle’ has been applied to forms that are alternatively regarded as converbs (see Sireniki Eskimo below), gerunds, gerundives, transgressives, and nominalised verbs in complement clauses. As a result, ‘participles’ have come to be associated with a broad variety of syntactic constructions.

Etymology

The word ''participle'' comes from classical Latin , from 'sharing, participation', because it shares certain properties of verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. The Latin grammatical term is a calque of the Greek grammatical term 'participation, participle'.

In particular, Greek and Latin participles agree with the nouns that they modify in gender, number and case, but are also conjugated for tense and voice and can take prepositional and adverbial modifiers.

The linguistic term, ''past participle'', was coined circa 1798 based on its participial form, whose morphology equates to the regular form of preterite verbs. The term, ''present participle'', was first used circa 1864 to facilitate grammatical distinctions. Despite the taxonomical use of "past" and "present" as associated with the aforementioned participles, their respective semantic use can entail any tense, regardless of aspect, depending on how they are structurally combined.

Forms

Some languages have extensive participial systems but English has only two participial forms, most commonly termed:
#past participle, which is regularly formed with an ''-ed'' suffix (e.g. ''looked'', ''ended'', ''tutored'') but has numerous irregular forms (e.g. ''broken'', ''made'', ''understood''); and
#present participle, which is formed with an ''-ing'' suffix (e.g. ''breaking'', ''making'', ''understanding'').
Some grammars further distinguish ''passive participles'' as often associated with passive voice versus ''active participles'' as often associated with e.g. the present progressive tense, but such linguistic distinctions are neither recognized nor employed on a universal basis.

Types of participle

Participles can be used adjectivally (i.e. without characteristics of canonical verbs) as ''attributive adjectives''. They then take neither object complements nor modifiers that are typical of canonical verbs, but they are capable of being modified by adverbs such as ''very'' or ''slightly''. The difference is illustrated by the following examples:
*The subject interesting him at the moment is Greek history.
*Greek history is a very interesting subject.

In the first sentence ''interesting'' functions transitively as a nonfinite verb that takes the object ''him'', thereby forming the phrase ''interesting him'', which constitutes an adjectival phrase modifying ''subject''. In the second sentence ''interesting'' functions non-transitively; it instead acts as a prepositive adjective that can be modified by typical adverbs such as ''very'' or ''quite'' (or a prefix such as ''un-''). Similar examples are "''interested'' people", "a ''frightened'' rabbit", "''fallen'' leaves", "''meat-eating'' animals".

Participles are often used to form certain grammatical tenses or grammatical aspects. The two types of participle in Modern English are termed present participle and past participle, respectively (often also referred to as the ''-ing form'' and ''-ed/-en form''). The traditional terms are misleading because the participles do not necessarily correspond to tense: the present participle is often associated with the progressive (continuous) aspect, while the past participle is linked with the perfect aspect or passive voice. See the examples below:

*They were just standing there.
*By the time you get home I will have cleaned the house.

The first sentence is in the past tense (''were''), but a present participle expresses the progressive aspect (''be standing''). The second sentence is in the future tense (''will''), but a past participle is used for the perfect aspect (''have cleaned'').

Participles may also be identified with a particular voice: active or passive. Some languages (such as Latin and Russian) have distinct participles for active and passive uses. In English, the present participle is essentially an active participle, while the past participle has both active and passive uses.

The following examples illustrate this:
* I saw John eating his dinner. (Here ''eating'' is an active present participle).
* The bus has gone. (Here ''gone'' is an active past participle).
* The window was broken with a rock. (Here ''broken'' is a passive past participle)

Some languages differentiate adjectival participles and adverbial participles. An adverbial participle (or a participial phrase/clause based on such a participle) plays the role of an adverbial (adverb phrase) in the sentence in which it appears, whereas an adjectival participle (or a participial phrase/clause based on one) plays the role of an adjective phrase. Such languages include RussianThe Russian Participles
Part of “An Interactive On-line Reference Grammar — Russian” by Dr. Robert Beard. and other Slavic languages, Hungarian, and many Eskimo languages, such as Sireniki,Menovshchikov, G.A.: Language of Sireniki Eskimos. Phonetics, morphology, texts and vocabulary. Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Moscow • Leningrad, 1964. Original data: Г.А. Меновщиков: Язык сиреникских эскимосов. Фонетика, очерк морфологии, тексты и словарь. Академия Наук СССР. Институт языкознания. Москва • Ленинград, 1964 which has a sophisticated participle system. Details can be found in the sections below or in the articles on the grammars of specific languages.

Grammatical descriptions vary in the way these are treated. Some descriptive grammars treat such adverbial and adjectival participles as distinct lexical categories, while others include them both in a single category of participles. Adverbial participles in certain languages may be called converbs, gerunds, or gerundives (though this is not consistent with the meanings of the terms ''gerund'' or ''gerundive'' as normally applied to English or Latin), or transgressives.

Indo-European languages

Germanic languages

Early English

In Old English, past participles of Germanic strong verbs were marked with a ''ge-'' prefix, as are most strong and weak past participles in Dutch and German today, and often by a vowel change in the stem. Those of weak verbs were marked by the ending ''-d'', with or without an epenthetic vowel before it. Modern English past participles derive from these forms (although the ''ge-'' prefix, which became ''y-'' in Middle English, has now been lost — except in some rare dialects such as the Dorset dialect, where it takes the form of ''a-'').

Old English present participles were marked with an ending in ''-ende'' (or ''-iende'' for verbs whose infinitives ended in ''-ian'').

Middle English

In Middle English, the form of the present participle varied across regions: ''-ende'' (southwest, southeast, Midlands), ''-inde'' (southwest, southeast), ''-and'' (north), ''-inge'' (southeast). The last is the one that became standard, falling together with the suffix ''-ing'' used to form verbal nouns. See ''-ing'' (etymology).

Modern English

Modern English includes two traditional terms for its participles:
* The ''present participle'', also sometimes called the ''active'', ''imperfect'', or '' progressive'' participle, takes the ending ''-ing'', for example ''doing'', ''seeing'', ''working'', ''running'', ''breaking'', ''understanding''. It is identical in form to the verbal noun and gerund (see below). The term ''present participle'' is sometimes used to include the gerund; the term "gerund–participle" is also used to indicate the verb form.
* The ''past participle'', also sometimes called the ''passive'' or '' perfect'' participle, is identical to the past tense form (ending in ''-ed'') in the case of regular verbs, for example "loaded", "boiled", "mounted", but takes various forms in the case of irregular verbs, such as ''done'', ''sung'', ''written'', ''broken'', ''understood'', ''put'', ''gone'', etc.

In addition, various compound participles can be formed, such as ''having done'', ''being done'', ''having been doing'', ''having been done''.

Details of participle formation can be found under English verbs and List of English irregular verbs.

Participles, or participial phrases (clauses) formed from them, are used as follows:

1. As an adjective used in an attributive sense:
* A broken window (i.e., one that has been broken)
* An interesting book (i.e., one that interests)
* An exciting adventure (i.e., one that excites)
* The attached files (i.e., those that are attached)
* A fallen tree (i.e., one that has fallen)
* Our fallen comrades (i.e., those who have fallen)

Additionally, participles that express an adjectivally attributive meaning can be affixed to form adverbs, such as ''interestingly'' and ''excitedly''.

2. In postpositive phrases. These are often regarded as functioning as a reduced relative clause:
* A window broken by the wind (A window that was broken by the wind).
* A woman wearing a red hat (A woman who was wearing a red hat).
* The man standing over there is my uncle (The man who is standing over there is my uncle).
* We are a people clamoring for freedom (We are a people who are clamoring for freedom).

3. In an adverbial phrase. In the following, the  subject is understood to be the same as that of the main clause:
* Reviewing her bank statement, Ann started to cry (While she reviewed her bank statement, Ann started to cry).
* Having reviewed the bank statement, Ann started to cry (After she reviewed her bank statement, Ann started to cry).
* He shot the man, killing him (He shot the man and killed him).
* Maintained properly, wooden buildings can last for centuries (If/when they are maintained properly, wooden buildings can last for centuries).

With a different subject, placed before the participle:
* He and I having reconciled our differences, the project then proceeded smoothly (Because/after he and I had reconciled our differences, the project proceeded smoothly). (This is known as the nominative absolute construction.)

More generally as a clause or sentence modifier: 
* Broadly speaking, the project was successful. (See also dangling participle.)

4. Participles are used to form periphrastic verb tenses:

The present participle forms the  progressive aspect with the auxiliary verb ''be'': 

* Jim was sleeping.

The past participle forms the  perfect aspect with the auxiliary verb ''have'': 

* The chicken has eaten.

5. The past participle is used to form passive voice:
* The chicken was eaten.
Such passive participles can appear in an adjectival phrase: 
*The chicken eaten by the children was contaminated. 
Adverbially: 
*Eaten in this manner, the chicken presents no problem.
And in a nominative absolute construction, with a subject: 
*The chicken eaten, we returned home.

Note that a past participle that complements a stative verb (e.g., "The files that ''are attached'' or "Our comrades who ''have fallen''") becomes a passive participle within a passive voice construct.

6. As a gerund. The gerund is traditionally regarded as distinct from the present participle. A gerund can function transitively (e.g., "I like ''eating ice cream''") or intransitively (e.g., "I like ''swimming''"). In both instances, a gerund functions nominatively rather than adjectivally or adverbially—whether as an object (e.g., "I like ''sleeping''") or as a subject (e.g., "''Sleeping'' is not allowed"). Although ''gerunds'' and ''present participles'' are morphologically identical, their grammatical functions differ substantially.

Sometimes their morphological similarity can create contextual ambiguity, as Noam Chomsky pointed out in his well-known example:
*Flying planes can be dangerous.

When the meaning is "The practice of flying a plane is dangerous," ''flying'' functions as a gerund; when the danger concerns "Planes that fly" or "Planes when they are flying" (i.e., in contrast to ''grounded planes''), ''flying'' is being used adjectivally as a participle. For more on the distinctions between these uses of the ''-ing'' verb form, see ''-ing'': uses.

For more details on uses of participles and other parts of verbs in English, see Uses of English verb forms, including the sections on the present participle and past participle.

The following table summarises some of the uses of participles in English:

Scandinavian languages

In all of the Scandinavian languages the past participle has to agree with the noun to some degree. All of the Scandinavian languages have mandatory agreement with the noun in number. Nynorsk and Swedish have mandatory agreement in both number and gender. Icelandic and Faroese have agreement in number, gender and case. The verb form used for the perfect (or "supine") aspect is generally identical to the nominative neuter singular form of the past participle for all verbs. For the present participle there is no agreement.

Examples in Nynorsk:
* Sjølvkøyrande bilar kan vere farlege. (English: self-driving ''cars can be dangerous)''
* Kyllingen vart eten (English: The chicken was eaten)
* Dyret vart ete (English: The deer was eaten)
The participles are marked in bold. The first example involves a present participle and the two latter examples involves a past participle. All present participles end with an -ande suffix.

In Norwegian, the present participle may be used to form adjectives or adverbs denoting the possibility or convenience of performing the action prescribed by the verb. For example:
* Var maten etande? (English: Was the food edible?) (or rather: Was the food any good?)
* Utan servo vert bilen fort ukøyrande. (English: Without power steering, the car soon becomes impossible to drive.) (Lit: un-drivable)
This construction is allowed in Nynorsk, but not in Bokmål, where suffixes like ''-elig'' or ''-bar'' are used instead.

Latin and Romance languages

Latin

Latin grammar was studied in Europe for hundreds of years, especially the handbook written by the 4th-century teacher Aelius Donatus, and it is from Latin that the name and concept of the participle derives. According to Donatus there are four participles in Latin, as follows:

* present participle: present stem + ''-ns'' (gen. ''-ntis''); e.g. ''legēns'' (plural ''legentēs'') "(while) reading"
* perfect participle: supine stem + ''-us'', ''-a'', ''-um''; e.g. ''lēctus'' "read (by someone)"
* future participle: supine stem + ''-ūrus'', ''-ūra'', ''-ūrum''; e.g. ''lēctūrus'' "going to read", "due to read"
* gerundive (sometimes considered the future passive participle): e.g. ''legendus'' "due to be read", "necessary to be read"

However, many modern Latin grammars treat the gerundive as a separate part of speech.

The perfect participle is usually passive in meaning, and thus mainly formed from transitive verbs, for example ''frāctus'' "broken", ''missus'' "sent (by someone)". However, certain verbs (called deponent verbs) have a perfect participle in an active sense, e.g. ''profectus'' "having set out", ''hortātus'' "having encouraged", etc. The present and future participles are always active, the gerundive usually passive.

Because a participle is an adjective as well as a verb, just like any other Latin adjective its ending changes according to the noun it describes. So when the noun is masculine, the participle must be masculine; when the noun is in the accusative (object) case, the participle is also in the accusative case; when the noun has plural endings, the participle also has plural endings. Thus a simple participle such as ''frāctus'' "broken" can change to ''frācta'', ''frāctum'', ''frāctī'', ''frāctō'' and so on, according to its gender, number, and case.

A participle can have a descriptive meaning like an adjective, or a more dynamic meaning like a verb. Thus in the following sentence the participle ''strīctō'' "drawn" is better taken as describing an action ("he drew his sword" or "after drawing his sword") rather than as describing the sword ("with a drawn sword"):

*''Strīctō gladiō ad dormientem Lucrētiam vēnit.''
"With drawn sword he came to the sleeping Lucretia."

The dynamic, verbal meaning is more common, and Latin often uses a participle where English might use a simple verb.

The present participle often describes the circumstances attending the main verb. A typical example is:
*''Balbus ad mē vēnit currēns''.
"Balbus came to me running."

Both the future and the perfect participle (but not the present participle) can be used with various tenses of the verb ''esse'' "to be" to make a compound tense such as the future-in-the-past or the perfect passive:
*''Eō diē Rōmam ventūrus erat.''
"On that day he was going to return to Rome."
*''Occīsus est ā Thēbānīs.''
"He was killed by the Thebans."

The perfect and future participles can also be used, with or without the verb ''esse'' "to be", in indirect speech clauses:
*''(Dīxit eōs) locum facile inventūrōs (esse).''
"He said that they were easily going to find the place / He said that they would find the place easily."

For uses of the gerundive, see Latin syntax#The gerundive.

French

There are two basic participles:
*Present active participle: formed by dropping the ''-ons'' of the ''nous'' form of the present tense of a verb (except with ''être'' and ''avoir'') and then adding ''ant'': ''marchant'' "walking", ''étant'' "being", ''ayant'' "having".
*Past participle: formation varies according to verb group: ''vendu'' "sold", ''mis'' "placed", ''marché'' "walked", ''été'' "been", and ''fait'' "done". The sense of the past participle is passive as an adjective and in most verbal constructions with "avoir", but active in verbal constructions with "être", in reflexive constructions, and with some intransitive verbs.

Compound participles are possible:
*Present perfect participle: ''ayant appelé'' "having called", ''étant mort'' "being dead"
*Passive perfect participle: ''étant vendu'' "being sold, having been sold"

Usage:
*Present participles are used as qualifiers as in "un insecte volant" (a flying insect) and in some other contexts. They are never used to form tenses. The present participle is used in subordinate clauses, usually with ''en'': "Je marche, en parlant".
*Past participles are used as qualifiers for nouns: "la table cassée" (the broken table); to form compound tenses such as the perfect "Vous avez dit" (you have said) and to form the passive voice: "il a été tué" (he/it has been killed).

Spanish

In Spanish, the so-called 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 true participle, as such forms usually have the meaning of simple adjectives or nouns: e.g. ''amante'' "loving" or "lover", ''viviente'' "living" or "live".

Another participial form is known as the ''gerundio'', which ends in an (unchanging) suffix ''-ando'' or ''-iendo''. The gerundio is used in combination with the verb ''estar'' ("to be") to make continuous tenses: 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"). Another use is in phrases such as ''vino corriendo'' ("he/she came running") and ''lo vi corriendo'' ("I saw him running").

The past participle (''participio pasado'' or ''participio pasivo'') is regularly formed with one of the suffixes ''-ado'' or ''-ido (-ado'' for verbs ending in "-ar" and ''-ido'' for verbs ending in "-er" or "-ir"; but some verbs have an irregular form ending in ''-to'' (e.g. ''escrito, visto, puesto''), or ''-cho'' (e.g. ''dicho, hecho''). The past participle is used generally as an adjective referring to a finished action, in which case its ending changes according to gender and number. At other times is used to form compound tenses: the present perfect, past perfect (sometimes referred to as the ''pluscuamperfecto''), and the future perfect, in which case it is indeclinable. Some examples:

As an adjective (note how "escritas" agrees in gender with the noun, "las cartas"):
*''las cartas escritas'' "the written letters"

To form compound tenses:
*''Ha escrito una carta.'' "She (he, it) has written a letter."
*''Había escrito una carta.'' "She (he, it) had written a letter."
*''Habrá escrito una carta.'' "She (he, it) will have written a letter."

Hellenic languages

Ancient Greek

The Ancient Greek participle shares in the properties of adjectives and verbs. Like an adjective, it changes form for gender, case, and number. Like a verb, it has tense and voice, is modified by adverbs, and can take verb arguments, including an object. Participles are quite numerous in Ancient Greek: a non-defective verb has as many as ten participles.

There is a form of the participle for every combination of aspect (present, aorist, perfect, future) and voice (active, middle, passive). All participles are based on their finite forms. Here are the masculine nominative singular forms for a thematic and an athematic verb:

Like an adjective, it can modify a noun, and can be used to embed one thought into another.

In the example, the participial phrase ''tòn eû stratēgḗsonta'', literally "the one going to be a good general," is used to embed the idea ''eû stratēgḗsei'' "he will be a good general" within the main verb.

The participle is very widely used in Ancient Greek, especially in prose.

Indo-Aryan languages

Hindi & Urdu

There are two types of participles in Hindi & Urdu