- A grinning boy confronted me.
- A battered hat hung on the peg.
- Kate was playing with a broken doll.
- We could hear a rushing stream.
- Willing hands make light work.
- He was struck by a spent ball.
343. The past participle is often used as a predicate adjective expressing state or condition.
This construction is easily confused with the passive of verbs. The distinction may be seen in the following examples:—
- The rain began to fall heavily, and every time a gust of wind struck us we were drenched by it.
- When the rain at last ceased, we were drenched [that is, very wet].
In the first sentence, were drenched is the past passive of the verb drench (compare the active “every time a gust of wind struck us, it drenched us”). In the second, the participle drenched expresses mere condition, and is therefore a predicate adjective. The distinction, however, is not always sharp, and in cases of doubt the phrase may be taken together as a passive verb.
Note. The real test is the following. Whenever a person or thing is distinctly present to the mind as the doer of the action, we have a passive verb-phrase. Whenever, on the other hand, the participle merely describes condition with no thought of its being the result of an antecedent act, the construction is that of a predicate adjective ([§ 172, 3]).
Nominative Absolute
344. A substantive, with the participle belonging to it, is often used to make a peculiar form of adverbial modifying phrase: as,—
The wind failing, we lowered the sail.
Here the wind failing is equivalent to an adverbial phrase (on the failure of the wind) or an adverbial clause (when the wind failed). It defines the time of the action.