From this article, the reader will learn what a participial phrase is in English. English participle (participle) is an adjective derived from a verb, and having properties similar to it, as well as to an adverb; verb form used as an adjective. In other words, a participle is a description (adjective) made from a word (verb) denoting an action.
The participle in English and its forms
- Present Participle (another name for Participle 1; ends in -ing): to read - reading (read - reading), to wait - waiting (wait - waiting), to bring - bringing (carry - carrying), to be - being (to be - being), to lead - leading (to lead - leading). If the verb ends in an unpronounceable -e, then it is omitted before the "ing" ending (to give - giving, which in Russian means "to give - giving"). If the verb ends in a consonant sound that precedes stressed vowels, then the final letter before the suffix is doubled (to forget - forgetting, which translates into Russian as "forget - forgetting"). And for verbs of this type, such as lie (lie), die (die), tie (tie), the present participle is formed in a similar way: lying, dying, tying.
- Past Participle or Participle 2 (ends in -d, -ed; the only exceptions are irregular verbs, which can have endings such as -en, -t, -n, -ne): to ask - asked (ask - the one who was asked something), to deal - de alt (consider - considered), to eat - eaten (eat, eat - eaten), to go - gone (go - gone), to see - seen (look - seen).
Having de alt with the designation and forms of the participle, then we will consider what the participial turnover is in practice. Let's start with Present Participle:
- Leaving the hall hurriedly, she ran out. She ran out, hurriedly leaving the hallway.
- When reading Wuthering Heights, she hardly keeps herself from crying. Reading "Wuthering Heights", she barely holds back her tears.
- We had breakfast outside upon the terrace facing the Louvre. We had breakfast on the terrace overlooking the Louvre.
Now let's figure out what the past participle is:
- She replied through the locked wooden door. She answered through the closed wooden door.
- We turned into the hall lit up with lamps. We turned into a corridor lit by flashlights.
- Accompanied by her sister, she entered her new house. Accompanied by her sister, she entered her new home.
Despite the fact that in the above examples almost allparticiples have both verbal characteristics and the properties of an adjective and an adverb (as mentioned above), all of them are a participial turnover. The rules say that the Present Participle (present participle), in contrast to the Past Participle (adv. temp.), has several forms of use:
1) Indefinite Active: writing;
2) Indefinite Passive: being written;
3) Perfect Active: having written;
4) Perfect Passive: having been written.
Past Participle has no divisions in time, so there is only one form that can express not only the simultaneous action, but also the one that happened before the main one.
If we understand in more detail what participial turnover is at higher levels of language proficiency, then we can touch on aspects such as the functions of participles in a sentence. These functions apply to both the present participle and the past participle, the difference is only in the forms of use.
In a sentence, the participle can have the following syntactic functions:
- Determination function (an attribute): The fence surrounding our house is lately painted. The fence surrounding our house has been recently painted.
- Adverbial modifier (an adverbial modifier): Arriving there my mum found everything that should be found in the kitchen. Arriving there, my mother found everything that is usually found in the kitchen.
- A predicative function: The effect of my words was horrifying. The impression my words made was terrifying.
- As part of a complex object: John has found her un altered, but she has found him changed. He found that she had not changed at all, and she found that he had changed.
