Participle

In linguistics, a participle is a kind of verbal adjective; it indicates that the noun it modifies is a participant in the action that the participle refers to.

Participles in Modern English

In the English language, there are two types of participle:

the present participle, also known as the imperfect participle, which is formed by adding the suffix "-ing" to a verb (it is identical in form to a gerund, but differs in usage); and
the past participle, sometimes known as the perfect participle, which is usually the same as the past-tense form, especially for verbs whose past-tense form ends in "-ed".

The present participle in English is an active participle; the past participle is sometimes a passive participle (but sometimes not: in particular, the past participles of intransitive verbs are never passive, and are therefore sometimes used with active senses, such as in the expression fallen comrades, and the perfect aspect, formed with the perfect participle — "has done, has made" — is also active).

Most irregular verbs do not follow this pattern for forming past participles. Only modal auxiliary verbs fail to form present participles in English. All others form present participles by adding -ing; even the most irregular verbs do not vary from that pattern.

Examples include:

talk's participles are talking and talked (regular)
do's participles are doing and done (irregular)
eat's participles are eating and eaten (irregular)

Participles are adjectives and are often used in front of nouns, as in "I saw a talking horse", "It was a done deal", and "She sold the crashed car at a loss".

The term present participle is sometimes also applied to gerunds (a kind of verbal noun), since in English gerunds and present participles are identical in form. However, this application of the term is often considered to be an error.

Participles in other languages

Latin

Other languages have different sorts of participles. For example, Latin has:

active present participle: educans "teaching"
passive perfect participle: educatus "having been taught"
active future participle: educaturus "about to teach"

Old English

Old English ended present participles with -ind. In the East Midlands dialect, it merged with -ing, which originally only named actions.
Past participles are marked with a ge- prefix, as is done today in Dutch and High German.

French

There are two basic participles:

Present participle: formed with the verb root + ant. Eg, marchant "walking", étant "being"
Past participle: formation varies according to verb group. Eg: marché "walked", été "been", vendu "sold". May require agreement.

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 participle (el gerundio) of a verb is generally formed with one of the suffixes -ando, -iendo; the past participle (el participio) is generally formed with one of the suffixes -ado, -ido.

Traditionally, Spanish grammar has regarded the present participle not as an adjective, but as an adverb, and it does not change form to agree with any noun in gender or number. Nonetheless, it is used in much the same ways as the (adjective) present participle in English; for example, Spanish's equivalent of English's progressive aspect (e.g., to be doing) is formed with a combination of the verb estar (to be in a transient sense) and the present participle of the main verb (e.g., estar haciendo).

By contrast, the past participle is considered an adjective, and agrees with a noun in gender and number, except when used to express the perfect aspect (e.g., to have done, which in Spanish is haber hecho).

Esperanto

In Esperanto each transitive verb has two present participles (active and passive), two past participles, and two future participles. Some speakers have also analogously constructed two conditional participles, which are not in widespread use and are not officially sanctioned by the Akademio de Esperanto, but which are nonetheless readily understood. Intransitive verbs have all the same active participles, but of course cannot have passive participles.

References

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

Grammar

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