Germanic languages Early English In
Old English, past participles of
Germanic strong verbs were marked with a prefix, a West Germanic feature still found in most strong and weak past participles in Dutch and German today, and often by a vowel change in the stem. Those of weak verbs were marked by the ending , with or without an
epenthetic vowel before it. Modern English past participles derive from these forms (although the prefix, which became in Middle English, has now been lost — except in some rare dialects such as the
Dorset dialect, where it takes the form of
a-). Old English present participles were marked with an ending in (or for verbs whose infinitives ended in ).
Middle English In
Middle English, the form of the present participle varied across regions: (southwest, southeast,
Midlands), (southwest, southeast), (north), (southeast). The last is the one that became standard, falling together with the suffix used to form
verbal nouns. See
-ing (etymology).
Modern English Modern English includes two traditional terms for its participles: • The
present participle, also sometimes called the
active,
imperfect, or
progressive participle, takes the ending
-ing, for example
doing,
seeing,
working,
running,
breaking,
understanding. It is identical in form to the
verbal noun and
gerund (see below). The term
present participle is sometimes used to include the gerund; the term "gerund–participle" is also used to indicate the verb form. • The
past participle, also sometimes called the
passive or
perfect participle, is identical to the
past tense form (ending in
-ed) in the case of regular verbs, for example "loaded", "boiled", "mounted", but takes various forms in the case of
irregular verbs, such as
done,
sung,
written,
broken,
understood,
put,
gone, etc. In addition, various compound participles can be formed, such as
having done,
being done,
having been doing,
having been done. Details of participle formation can be found under
English verbs and
List of English irregular verbs. Participles, or participial phrases (clauses) formed from them, are used as follows: 1. As an adjective used in an attributive sense: • A
broken window (i.e., one that has been broken) • An
interesting book (i.e., one that interests) • An
exciting adventure (i.e., one that excites) • The
attached files (i.e., those that are attached) • A
fallen tree (i.e., one that has fallen) • Our
fallen comrades (i.e., those who have fallen) Additionally, participles that express an adjectivally attributive meaning can be affixed to form adverbs, such as
interestingly and
excitedly. 2. In postpositive phrases. These are often regarded as functioning as a
reduced relative clause: • A window
broken by the wind (A window that was
broken by the wind). • A woman
wearing a red hat (A woman who was
wearing a red hat). • The man
standing over there is my uncle (The man who is
standing over there is my uncle). • We are a people
clamoring for freedom (We are a people who are
clamoring for freedom). 3. In an
adverbial phrase. In the following, the
subject is understood to be the same as that of the main clause: •
Reviewing her bank statement, Ann started to cry (While she reviewed her bank statement, Ann started to cry). •
Having reviewed the bank statement, Ann started to cry (After she reviewed her bank statement, Ann started to cry). • He shot the man,
killing him (He shot the man and killed him). •
Maintained properly, wooden buildings can last for centuries (If/when they are maintained properly, wooden buildings can last for centuries). With a different subject, placed before the participle: • He and I
having reconciled our differences, the project then proceeded smoothly (Because/after he and I had reconciled our differences, the project proceeded smoothly). (This is known as the nominative absolute construction.) More generally as a part of an adverb: • Broadly
speaking, the project was successful. 4. Participles are used to form
periphrastic verb tenses: The present participle forms the
progressive aspect with the auxiliary verb
be: • Jim was
sleeping. The past participle forms the
perfect aspect with the auxiliary verb
have: • The chicken has
eaten. 5. The past participle is used to form
passive voice: • The chicken was
eaten. Such passive participles can appear in an adjectival phrase: • The chicken
eaten by the children was contaminated. Adverbially: •
Eaten in this manner, the chicken presents no problem. And in a nominative absolute construction, with a subject: • The chicken
eaten, we returned home. Note that a past participle that complements a
stative verb (e.g., "The files that
are attached or "Our comrades who
have fallen") becomes a passive participle within a
passive voice construct. 6. As a gerund. The
gerund is traditionally regarded as distinct from the present participle. A gerund can function transitively (e.g., "I like
eating ice cream") or intransitively (e.g., "I like
swimming"). In both instances, a gerund functions nominatively rather than adjectivally or adverbially—whether as an object (e.g., "I like
sleeping") or as a subject (e.g., "
Sleeping is not allowed"). Although
gerunds and
present participles are morphologically identical, their grammatical functions differ substantially. Sometimes their morphological similarity can create contextual ambiguity, as
Noam Chomsky pointed out in his well-known example: •
Flying planes can be dangerous. When the meaning is "The practice of flying a plane is dangerous,"
flying functions as a gerund; when the danger concerns "Planes that fly" or "Planes when they are flying" (i.e., in contrast to
grounded planes),
flying is being used adjectivally as a participle. For more on the distinctions between these uses of the
-ing verb form, see
-ing: uses. For more details on uses of participles and other parts of verbs in English, see
Uses of English verb forms, including the sections on the
present participle and
past participle. The following table summarises some of the uses of participles in English:
Scandinavian languages In all of the
Scandinavian languages the past participle has to agree with the noun to some degree. All of the Scandinavian languages have mandatory agreement with the noun in number.
Nynorsk and
Swedish have mandatory agreement in both number and gender.
Icelandic and
Faroese have agreement in number, gender and case. The verb form used for the perfect (or "
supine") aspect is generally identical to the nominative neuter singular form of the past participle for all verbs. For the present participle there is no agreement. Examples in
Nynorsk: • (English:
self-driving cars can be dangerous) • (English: The chicken was
eaten) • (English: The deer was
eaten) The participles are marked in bold. The first example involves a present participle and the two latter examples involves a past participle. All present participles end with an -ande suffix. In Norwegian, the present participle may be used to form adjectives or adverbs denoting the possibility or convenience of performing the action prescribed by the verb. For example: • (English: Was the food
edible?) (or rather: Was the food
any good?) • (English: Without power steering, the car soon becomes
impossible to drive.) (Lit: un-drivable) This construction is allowed in Nynorsk, but not in
Bokmål, where suffixes like or are used instead.
Latin and Romance languages Latin Latin grammar was studied in Europe for hundreds of years, especially the handbook written by the 4th-century teacher
Aelius Donatus, and it is from Latin that the name and concept of the participle derives. According to Donatus there are four participles in Latin, as follows: •
present participle: present stem + (gen. ); e.g. (plural ) "(while) reading" •
perfect participle:
supine stem + , , ; e.g. "read (by someone)" •
future participle: supine stem + , , ; e.g. "going to read", "due to read" •
gerundive (sometimes considered the future passive participle): e.g. "due to be read", "necessary to be read" However, many modern Latin grammars treat the gerundive as a separate part of speech. The perfect participle is usually
passive in meaning, and thus mainly formed from
transitive verbs, for example "broken",
missus "sent (by someone)". However, certain verbs (called
deponent verbs) have a perfect participle in an
active sense, e.g. "having set out", "having encouraged", etc. The present and future participles are always active, the gerundive usually passive. Because a participle is an adjective as well as a verb, just like any other Latin adjective its ending changes according to the noun it describes. So when the noun is masculine, the participle must be masculine; when the noun is in the
accusative (object) case, the participle is also in the accusative case; when the noun has plural endings, the participle also has plural endings. Thus a simple participle such as "broken" can change to , , , and so on, according to its gender, number, and case. A participle can have a descriptive meaning like an adjective, or a more dynamic meaning like a verb. Thus in the following sentence the participle "drawn" is better taken as describing an action ("he drew his sword" or "after drawing his sword") rather than as describing the sword ("with a drawn sword"): • "With
drawn sword he came to the
sleeping Lucretia." The dynamic, verbal meaning is more common, and Latin often uses a participle where English might use a simple verb. The present participle often describes the circumstances attending the main verb. A typical example is: • ."Balbus came to me
running." Both the future and the perfect participle (but not the present participle) can be used with various tenses of the verb
esse "to be" to make a compound tense such as the future-in-the-past or the perfect passive: • "On that day
he was going to return to Rome." • "
He was killed by the Thebans." The perfect and future participles can also be used, with or without the verb "to be", in indirect speech clauses: • "He said that they were easily
going to find the place / He said that they
would find the place easily." For uses of the gerundive, see
Latin syntax § The gerundive.
French There are two basic participles: •
Present active participle: formed by dropping the of the form of the present tense of a verb (except with and ) and then adding : "walking", "being", "having". •
Past participle: formation varies according to verb group: "sold", "placed", "walked", "been", and "done". The sense of the past participle is passive as an adjective and in most verbal constructions with , but active in verbal constructions with , in reflexive constructions, and with some intransitive verbs. Compound participles are possible: •
Present perfect participle: "having called", "being dead" •
Passive perfect participle: "being sold, having been sold" Usage: •
Present participles are used as qualifiers as in ('a flying insect') and in some other contexts. They are never used to form tenses. •
Past participles are used as qualifiers for nouns: ('the broken table'); to form compound tenses such as the perfect ('you have said') and to form the passive voice: ('he/it has been killed').
Spanish In Spanish, the so-called present or active participle ( or ) of a verb is traditionally formed with one of the suffixes , or , but modern grammar does not consider it a true participle, as such forms usually have the meaning of simple adjectives or nouns: e.g. "loving" or "lover", "living" or "live". The past participle ( or ) is regularly formed with one of the suffixes or ( for verbs ending in and for verbs ending in or ; but some verbs have an irregular form ending in (e.g. , , ), or (e.g. , ). The past participle is used generally as an adjective referring to a finished action, in which case its ending changes according to gender and number. At other times is used to form compound tenses: the present perfect, past perfect (sometimes referred to as the ), and the future perfect, in which case it is indeclinable. Some examples: As an adjective (note how agrees in gender with the noun, ): • "the written letters" To form compound tenses: • "She (he, it) has written a letter." • "She (he, it) had written a letter." • "She (he, it) will have written a letter."
Hellenic languages Ancient Greek The
Ancient Greek participle shares in the properties of adjectives and verbs. Like an adjective, it changes form for
gender,
case, and
number. Like a verb, it has
tense and
voice, is modified by
adverbs, and can take
verb arguments, including an
object. Participles are quite numerous in Ancient Greek: a non-defective verb has as many as ten participles. There is a form of the participle for every combination of aspect (present, aorist, perfect, future) and voice (active, middle, passive). All participles are based on their finite forms. Here are the masculine nominative singular forms for a thematic and an athematic verb: Like an adjective, it can modify a noun, and can be used to embed one thought into another. {{interlinear|lang=grc|indent=3 In the example, the participial phrase , literally "the one going to be a good general", is used to embed the idea "he will be a good general" within the main verb. The participle is very widely used in Ancient Greek, especially in prose.
Indo-Aryan languages Hindi and Urdu There are two types of participles in
Hindi and
Urdu (called together
Hindustani), aspectual participles which mark the aspect and non-aspectual participles which do not mark verbal aspect. The table below mentions the different participles present in
Hindustani,
ɸ denotes the verb root. The aspectual participles can take a few other copulas after them besides the verb "to be". Those copular verbs are "to stay", "to come", "to go".
Sanskrit Much like
Ancient Greek,
Sanskrit has a
wide array of participles.
Celtic languages Cornish In
Cornish, an equivalent present participle construction to English is formed by using ( before vowels) with a verbal noun, e.g. ("The man is laughing"), and ("a laughing man"). Like
Breton but unlike
Welsh, Cornish also has verbal adjectives which are used similarly to English past participles, e.g. ("clotted cream"), from the verbal noun "to clot".
Welsh In
Welsh, the effect of a participle in the active voice is constructed by followed by the verb-noun (for the present participle) and followed by the verb-noun (for the past participle). There is no
mutation in either case. In the passive voice, participles are usually replaced by a compound phrase such as ("having got his/her/their ...ing") in
modern Welsh and by the impersonal form in
literary Welsh.
Slavic languages Polish The
Polish word for participle is (
pl.: ). There are four types of in two classes: Adjectival participle (): • active adjectival participle (): – "doing", "one who does" • passive adjectival participle (): – "being done" (can only be formed off
transitive verbs) Adverbial participle (): • present adverbial participle (): – "doing", "while doing" • perfect adverbial participle (): – "having done" (formed in virtually all cases off verbs in their
perfective forms, here denoted by the
prefix ) Due to the distinction between adjectival and adverbial participles, in Polish it is practically impossible to make a
dangling participle in the classical English meaning of the term. For instance, in the sentence: • I found them hiding in the closet. it is unclear whether "I" or "they" were hiding in the closet. In Polish there is a clear distinction: • – is a present adverbial participle agreeing grammatically with the subject ("I") • – is an active adjectival participle agreeing grammatically with the object ("them")
Russian Verb: [ˈsɫɨ.ʂɐtʲ] (to hear,
imperfective aspect) • Present active: [ˈsɫɨ.ʂɐ.ɕːɪj] "hearing", "who hears" • Present passive: [ˈsɫɨ.ʂɨ̞.mɨ̞j] "being heard", "that is heard", "audible" • Past active: [ˈsɫɨ.ʂɐf.ʂɨ̞j] "who heard", "who was hearing" • Past passive: [ˈsɫɨ.ʂɐn.nɨ̞j] "that was heard", "that was being heard" •
Adverbial present active: [ˈsɫɨ.ʂɐ] "(while) hearing" • Adverbial past active: [ˈsɫɨ.ʂɐf] "(while) hearing" (used mostly in the negative in the modern language, e.g. "without ever hearing") Verb: [ʊˈsɫɨ.ʂɐtʲ] (to hear,
perfective aspect) • Past active: [ʊˈsɫɨ.ʂɐf.ʂɨ̞j] "who has heard" • Past passive: [ʊˈsɫɨ.ʂɐn.nɨ̞j] "that has been heard", "who has been heard" • Adverbial past active: [ʊˈsɫɨ.ʂɐf] "having heard", "after hearing" Future participles formed from perfective verbs are not considered a part of standard language.
Bulgarian Participles are adjectives formed from verbs. There are various kinds: Verb: [pravja] (to do, imperfective aspect): • Present active: [pravešt] • Past active aorist: [pravil] • Past active imperfect: [pravel] (only used in
verbal constructions) • Past passive: [praven] • Adverbial present active: [pravejki] Verb: [napravja] (to do, perfective aspect): • Past active aorist: [napravil] • Past active imperfect: [napravel] (only used in
verbal constructions) • Past passive: [napraven]
Macedonian Macedonian has completely lost or transformed the participles of Common Slavic, unlike the other Slavic languages. The following points may be noted: • present active participle: this has transformed into a verbal adverb; • present passive participle: there are some isolated cases or remnants of the present passive participle, such as the word [lakom] (greedy); • past active participle: there is only one remnant of the past active participle, which is the word [bivš] (former). However, this word is often replaced with the word [poranešen] (former); • past passive participle: this has been transformed into a verbal adjective (it behaves like a normal adjective); • resultative participle: this has transformed into a verbal l-form ( л-форма). It is not a participle since it does not function attributively.
Baltic languages Lithuanian Among Indo-European languages, the
Lithuanian language is unique for having 14 different participial forms of the verb, which can be grouped into five when accounting for inflection by tense. Some of these are also inflected by gender and case. For example, the verb ("to go, to walk") has the active participle forms ("going, walking", present tense), (past tense), (future tense), (past frequentative tense), the passive participle forms ("being walked", present tense), ("walked" past tense), (future tense), the adverbial participles ("while [he, different subject] is walking" present tense), (past tense), (future tense), (past frequentative tense), the semi-participle ("while [he, the same subject] is going, walking") and the participle of necessity ("what needs to be walked"). The active and passive participles and the semi-participles are inflected by gender, and the active, passive and necessity participles are inflected by case. ==Semitic languages==