The participles of the intransitive verb are four.
Common form—Going, gone, having gone.
Progressive—Having been going.
Note.—We frequently meet these combinations of words: being gone, having been gone. They are not passive participles of the verb go, for they do not denote action received any more than do the phrases being sick and having been sick. The word gone is a participle used as an adjective complement of the participles being and having been, just as the word sick is used. This is a very common construction, seen in such familiar sentences as the following,—He is risen, the tree is fallen, the coat is badly worn, you are mistaken, the meat is done. In all these instances the participles denote a condition of the subject, and are therefore complements of the verb.
The most common use of the simple participial forms, like seeing and seen, is to help form progressive verb-phrases and passive verb-phrases; thus, is seeing, shall be seeing, might have been seeing; is seen, shall be seen, might have been seen. These phrases are not to be separated into their constituent parts, however, but are to be treated as single verbs, hence we are not concerned with the participles they contain.
Uses of the Participle.—1. The participial adjective.—The one use of the participle which is almost identical with that of the adjective is seen in such expressions as running water, trotting horse, educated man, spoiled child. Here the idea Of action is not so prominent as that of quality. Some of these participles have become so far like adjectives as to admit of comparison; for example, striking in such an expression as striking appearance, or deceiving in deceiving story. Some of them, too, may be modified by very, which is never a verb modifier; as, loving in very loving children.
This participle is sometimes used substantively; thus, “The loving are the daring.” “The slain were left to die.” Of course such a word as people is understood after these participles, and in analyzing these sentences it may be supplied if one so desires, but it is no more necessary than it is in the sentences,—“The good are happy, the righteous are blessed,” where a qualifying adjective is used as a noun.
2. The participial phrase as a substitute for a proposition.—We come now to those frequent and important uses of the participle where it saves a predication. It usually has other words associated with it, either as complement or modifiers, the whole group forming a participial phrase.
(a) The participial phrase may take the place of an adjective clause; as, “The use of the cartridges complained of was discontinued by orders issued in January 1857.”—McCarthy. The participle is here equivalent to a restrictive adjective clause pointing out the particular cartridges.
Just as often the participial phrase is equivalent to an unrestrictive clause, and then it is very much like an appositive modifier; as, “The first person I met was a poor old woman, a little bowed down with age, gathering grapes into a large basket.”—Longfellow.
(b) The participial phrase may take the place of an adverbial clause; as, “And, having once tasted a life like this, he could no more return to what he had left behind him.”—Boyesen. Here the participial phrase tells us why he could no more return to what he had left behind him. If this idea were differently expressed, we should have either a prepositional phrase modifying the predicate or an adverbial clause of cause introduced by since. But all this does not make the phrase a grammatical adjunct of the predicate. Instead it is an adjunct of the subject he. If it were expanded into a clause, the subject he would have to be supplied and the phrase would become a predicate. Now, as predicate it would tell something about the subject he; and it does not cease to do this when it is changed to a participial phrase.