Before we start talking about short participles, let's remember what part of speech they are. At school, it is characterized as a special form of the verb, denoting a sign by action. But some linguists reasonably believe that this is an independent part of speech. After all, it has some features that the verb does not have.
Like a verb, participles are perfective and imperfective and have a
present and past tense. (Note that it has no future tense). For example: laughing - imperfective form, present tense, or laughing - perfect form, past tense. This part of speech can be replaced by the verb from which it was formed. For example: invited guest - the guest who was invited.
But, like an adjective, the full participle changes by number and gender: read - read - read - read. (For comparison, an adjective: cheerful - cheerful - cheerful - cheerful). And just like an adjective, it has a long form and a short form.
Features of the formation of a short participle
One of the forms of the passive participle, indicating a sign of an object experiencing any action from the outside, is short: open - short passive (compare: open - full passive). In a sentencethe full form usually acts as a definition, and the short form of this part of speech is always a predicate, for example: I saw her shoulders wrapped in a shawl. - The shoulders are wrapped in a shawl (shrouded - definition, and shrouded - predicate).
Short participle is most often formed with the help of suffixes -н - and -t-. For example: removed, supplemented. Unlike the full form, the short one has one -n: felled - cut down, paved - paved. By the way, one should be aware of a common speech error in using one suffix when forming a short form instead of another. T o removed in the house - instead of the normative: removed.
Short participle changes by numbers: configured - configured, launched - launched, etc. In the singular, it also changes by gender: simplified - simplified - simplified; grown - grown - grown.
In order not to confuse the short form of adjectives and participles, it is necessary to clearly distinguish from which part of speech the given word is formed. A short participle is from the verb, and a short adjective is from the full form of the adjective, for example: throw - thrown - thrown; good is good.
How to distinguish between a short adjective and a short participle. Examples
Let's try by example to learn to distinguish between a verbal adjective and a participle in short form. He was uneducated. How to determine what part of speech is in front of us? Let's reason. If we have a sacrament, then we can always put a question from it in the instrumental case. He was uneducated (by whom?) - you can’t ask like that, because the meaning of what was said is lost. In this context, uneducated is a short adjective, since it can also be replaced by a synonym: illiterate.
In the sentence "These sculptures are formed by nature itself" about formed - a short participle. Since it is easy to raise the question from him: by whom? or what? without changing the meaning of what was said. In this sentence, the word nature answers it.
