The participle may also be used as an adjective. Notice the following:
- The crying child came toward us.
- The rescuing party arrived.
In these sentences crying and rescuing are formed from the verbs cry and rescue, and are used as adjectives to describe the noun child and the noun party. So a participle is a mixed part of speech. It is partially a verb, but is not a true verb. A true verb is always used as the predicate, the asserting word in the sentence and always has a subject. The participle never has a subject; it may have an object, but not a subject.
114. There are two forms of the participle. The active form or the present form as it is sometimes called, ends in ing, as, waiting, walking, saying. It expresses action, existence, or possession as going on at the time mentioned in the sentence.
115. The other form of the participle is the passive form or the past form of the participle. This ends in ed in the regular verbs, and has various forms in the irregular verbs. It is formed in regular verbs by adding d or ed to the simple form, hence has the same form as the past time form, as for example, present time form, call—past time form, called—past participle, called. You will find the past participle forms of irregular verbs in the list of irregular verbs given in this lesson, as for example—present time form, go—past time form, went—past participle, gone.
116. You will find as we study the verb phrases in later lessons that these participles are used in forming verb phrases. As for example:
- He is coming.
- They are trying.
- He has gone.
A participle is a word derived from a verb, partaking of the nature of a verb and also of an adjective or a noun.
LET US SUM UP
117. Verbs have five form changes.