§ 176. The syntactic functions of the participle in the sentence are more restricted than those of the other two verbals. It mainly performs the functions of the adjective.

e.g. One day he landed in Santa Domingo in torn and dusty clothes. He stood amazed at the door of the shop.

§ 177. The participle, like the other two verbals, is, in some of its functions, lexically and structurally dependent. For example its use is required by the verb to have in the following pattern.

e.g. You'll never guess where I had the suit made.

The functions of the participle will be dealt with in detail below.

§ 178. The participle, like the finite forms and the two other verbals, can be modified by secondary parts of the sentence. But the number of those modifiers is restricted and the participle phrase is never very extended. The secondary parts that modify the participle usually denote the place (a), or the time (b), or the doer of the action (c). They always follow the participle.

e.g. a) I had my suitcase put in the corner of a third-class carriage. b) She told me of the parcel delivered in the morning.

c) They let him know of the decision taken by the committee. The negative not is always placed before the participle. e.g. Margaret, not convinced, was still arguing about it.

If the verb requires a prepositional object, the preposition is retained by the participle when the object happens to be separated from it.

e.g. He never uttered a word unless spoken to.

The blood in his cut seemed very dark. "You ought to have it looked at," I said.

§179. The participle often becomes adjectivized. (Adjectiviza- tion is even more typical of the participle than of the ing-form.) It becomes devoid of the idea of action and sometimes its lexical meaning is changed as compared with the meaning of the corre- sponding verb (see the second and third examples below)-

e.g. On the surface my life was varied and exciting; but beneath it was narrow.

He was an elegant gentleman though given to talking in a gruff voice (= склонный, имеющий обыкновение).

The streets, deserted now, looked frightening (= пустые, без- людные).

The adjectivized participle may be preceded, like a real adjec- tive, by adverbs of degree.

e.g. Is Mrs White really very excited?

Suddenly, looking rather alarmed, she rushed out of the room. The road was as deserted as ever.

Note 1. Some participles are used only as adjectives in present-day English, e.g. tired, interested, accustomed and others.

Note 2. There are a number of adjectives ending in -ed which are homonymous to participles. They are actually adjectives formed from nouns, e.g. stockinged legs, propertied classes, a bearded face, a gifted person, a talented musician, etc.

Adjectives built up on this pattern mean 'having stockings, having property, having a beard', etc.

§ 180. The use of all the three verbals is characterized by one more peculiarity: the frequency of their occurrence varies greatly in different functions. In some functions their use is extensive, in other functions it is infrequent. At the same time, some of their functions are found only in literary style.

In describing the various functions of the verbals, special mention will be made of their frequency of occurrence and stylis- tic restrictions.