4. Categories and functions of participles

Compare:

1. They watched the car being repaired (Present Participle).

2. He doesn’t like being asked questions (Gerund).

3. Having spent all his money, he couldn’t take a taxi (Perfect Participle).

4. He is proud of having achieved so much (Gerund).

5. Living in the country is pleasant (Gerund).

6. Living in the country, he went fishing every day (Present Participle).

Participle is a non-finite and adjective-like form of a verb. It shares properties of verbs and adjectives and adverbs.

Verbal properties	Adjective properties	Adverb properties
Transitivity/intransitivity Tense concord Voice Ability to have an adverb	As adjective, the Participle may perform the function of attribute to a noun or complement	Performs the function of adverbial modifier

Forms

There are five forms of participles. Those participles which formed from transitive verbs are of active and passive voice.

	Present participle	Past participle	Perfect participle
Active	Breaking	------	Having broken
passive	Being broken	broken	Having been broken

Note that there is no Past Participle active. So, we can translate Russian past participle a subordinate attribute clause: Человек, прочитавший этот доклад, не новичок в политике. The man who delivered the report is not a student in politics.

The present participle in English is active. It has the following uses:

forming the progressive aspect: Jim was sleeping.

modifying a noun: Let sleeping dogs lie.

modifying a verb or sentence: Broadly speaking, the project was successful.

The present participle in English has the same form as the gerund, but the gerund acts as a noun rather than a verb or a modifier. The word sleeping in the sentence ‘Your job description does not include sleeping’ is a gerund and not a present participle.

The past participle has both active and passive uses:

forming the perfect aspect: The chicken has eaten.

forming the passive voice: The chicken was eaten.

modifying a noun, active sense: our fallen comrades

modifying a noun, passive sense: the attached files

modifying a verb or sentence, passive sense: Seen from this perspective, the problem presents no easy solution.

Position in a sentence:

As noun-modifiers, participles usually precede the noun (like adjectives), but in many cases they can or must follow it: Please bring all the documents required. The difficulties encountered were nearly insurmountable.

Formation

Reducing adjective clauses to adjective phrases:

1. Clause is a group of related words that contain a subject and a predicate.

2. Phrase is a group of related words that doesn’t contain a subject and predicate.

Compare:

1. The girl who is sitting next to me is Maria. / The girl sitting next to me is Maria.

2. The boy who is playing the piano is Ben. / The boy playing the piano is Ben.

3. The man (who is) talking to John is from Korea.

4. The ideas (which are) presented in that book are essential.

5. English has an alphabet (that consists) = consisting of 26 letters.

An adjective phrase is a reduction of an adjective clause. It modifies a noun. It doesn’t contain a subject and a predicate but has the same meaning.

1. She was crying when I saw her.

2. She ran out of the room crying.

3. Who is the man talking to Elisabeth?

4. He was talking to Elisabeth the whole party.

5. The house was broken in the storm.

6. The broken cup is in the waste bin.

Usage:

1. as adjectives: I like the noise of falling rain. John has become very boring.

She says she’s got a broken heart. Our house looked abandoned.

2. as adverbs: She ran screaming out of the room. She sat smiling. Being ill, he couldn’t come. While watching the film, I thought of many things.

3. as clauses (Participles can combine with other words into clause-like structures): Who is the fat man sitting in the corner? Having lost all my money, I went home. Most of the people invited to the party didn’t turn up. Rejected by all his friends, he decided to become a monk. The road being bad, we drove very slowly.

When –ing forms are used as adjectives or adverbs, they have similar meaning to active verbs:

A fascinating story (= a story that fascinates);falling leaves (= leaves that fall); a meat-eating animal (= that eats meat).

Passive meaning:

A broken heart (= a heart that has been broken); I lived alone forgotten by everyone (= He had been forgotten).

Active Past Participles:

A fallen leaf (= a leaf that has fallen); Advanced students (who have advanced to a high level);

Developed countries (vs. developing countries); Increased activity; vanished civilization; a retired general; a grown-up daughter; an escaped prisoner; faded colours; swollen ankles. Rescuers are still working in the ruins of the collapsed hotel.

Adverb + Past/present Participle in phrases:

A well-educated person, (well-read/bred/born/paid); a much-travelled man, recently-arrived immigrants; a lost dog; an interesting/exciting book/film; English-speaking countries, a fox-hunting man; screaming children. His idea seems exciting. Is that watch self-winding?

Compound structures:

Quick-growing trees; home-made cake, a recently-built house; the above-mentioned point; government-inspired rumors.

Meaning :

Participles are often used to describe two actions:

1. That happens at the same time: She sat by the fire reading a magazine. Carol is in the bar having a drink. Do something! Don’t just stand doing nothing!

2. One action happens during (or after) another action (we use –ing for the longer action). You can also use –ing after while or when: Jim hurt his arm playing tennis. Did you cut yourself shaving? Be careful when crossing the road. Loosening his tie, he sat down in the chair.

3. When one action happens before another action, we use having (done) for another action. Having finished lunch, we set off. Having found a hotel, we looked for somewhere to have dinner. You can also use after –ing: After finishing her work, she went home.

4. Two actions that happens one because of another: Being a mean person, he never bought anything to anybody. Not knowing what else to do, I waited patiently. Weakened by years of bad health, she could hardly sit up in bed. Feeling tired, I went to bed early. Being unemployed, he hasn’t got much money.

1. Present Participle describes an action still happening: He dived into the sea to save a drowning child.

2. Past Participle describes the result of an action that has happened. The completed statue looked lifelike.

The Ukrainian diyepryslivnyk, whether active or passive or non-perfective present and perfective past, remains indeclinable verbal form. The imperfective (present) diyepryslivnyk is formed by adding the suffix –учи/-ючи: несучи, працюючи. Слухаючи їх жартівливу розмову, уверне слівце й од себе (Нечуй-Левицький).

Perfective diyepryslivnyk is formed with the help of suffix –ши/-вши: донісши, привізши, взнавши, пивши, ївши, побачивши, здолавши. Устромивши люльку в рот і закривши очі, він ще потроху пахкав (Панас Мирний).

Perfective and imperfective diyepryslivnyk may also be formed from verbs having the postfix –ся/-сь: турбуючись, милуючись, дивуючись. Хвилюючись, все ще не опам’ятавшись, солдат розповідав про себе (Гончар).

The semantic and functional equivalents to the imperfective (present) and perfective (past) diyepryslivnyks in English are indefinite or perfective participle (both active and passive) performing the functions of:

• adverbial modifiers of time: While working so hard he needed sea air (Galsworthy);

• attending circumstances: Clara sat in the cool parlour reading (Lawrence);

• the adverbial modifier of cause: Being tired he thought of sleep (J.K. Jerome);

• and that of result: Having seen all that was to be seen he came out (Galsworthy).

The functions of the infinitive and participle in a sentence generally coincide in both languages, though Ukrainian participles have gender, number and case distinctions, which are lost by their English corresponding equivalents: працюючий, працююча, працююче (колесо); працюючого, працюючому, працюючої, працюючих, працюючими.

Allomorphic for Ukrainian are some syntactic functions pertained to English participles and infinitives which may form from some semantic classes of verbs (for example, those of physical and mental perception) complex parts of a sentence. These parts of the sentence are completely alien to Ukrainian. He was seen to go/going home. We heard him sing/singing. He wants me to be reading. The lesson (being) over, the students went to the library. Each of these secondary predication complexes (with the only exception of the for-to-infinitive construction) has a subordinate clause for its equivalent in Ukrainian: Бачили, як/коли він ішов додому. Ми чули, як він співає/співав. Після того/оскільки заняття закінчилося, студенти пішли до бібліотеки.

Misrelated participle/ ‘dangling’

Misrelated participle would be considered incorrect by many people. However, sentences with ‘misrelated participle’ are common and often seem quite natural, particularly when the main clause has preparatory IT or THERE as a subject.

Compare:

Having so little time, there was not much that I could do.

Being French, it’s surprising that she’s such a terrible cook.

The nominative absolute participial construction

The construction consists of two interdependent elements, nominal and verbal, which are in predicative relation. These elements make a syntactical complex functioning as a detached adverbial modifier (обособленное обстоятельство).

C ompare:

1. Having read the novel , Jane (she) put it aside.

2. T he novel having been read, Jane put it aside.

In the participle phrase (1) the subject (Jane) is related both to the participle (having read) and to the main verb (put aside). In the nominative absolute construction (2) the subject (Jane) is related only to the main verb (put aside), but the participle clause has its own subject (the novel).

Compare the following sentences:

A. Having cleared up the misunderstanding, the chairman turned the meeting over to the treasurer. (Regular Perfect Participle)

B. Once the misunderstanding was cleared up, the meeting was turned over to the treasurer.

(Misrelated Participle)

Functions:

The nominative absolute participial construction functions as an adverbial modifier of:

1. Attendant circumstances: Hands held high, the dancers circle to the right. She stood in front of the window, her nose almost pressed to the window. Stuart looked through the window, his glance traveling towards the bridge. Mabel hurried out of the car and walked away, tears streaming down her face.

2. Cause (reason): It being late, she went to bed. But I was a little on edge, there being something to report. The ship’s band did not play in the morning, it being Sunday. The painting not being displayed at the exhibition? You are not allowed to buy it.

3. Time: Nobody having any more to say, the meeting was closed. The work completed, she went upstairs. Ice having thus been broken, the two former rivals grew still more affectionate. John having left the room to ring for a taxi as arranged, Mary sat down to wait for him. As he was leaving, I kissed my son on his forehead.

4. Condition: Time permitting, we will watch the film. Looking out of the hotel room, there was a wonderful range of mountains.

Prepositional Absolute Participial Construction

It is usually introduced by the preposition WITH.

She stood in front of the window with her nose almost pressed to the glass. Andrew went into the house with his heart beating fast. Officer sat with his long fine hands lying on the table perfectly still. A car roared past with smoke pouring from the exhaust.

Expressions referring to the speaker’s attitude

Generally speaking, men can run faster than women.

Broadly speaking, dogs are more faithful than cats.

Judging from my experience, he’s in a bad mood.

Considering everything, it wasn’t a bad holiday.

Supposing there was a war, what would you do?

Taking everything into consideration/account, they ought to get another chance.

Participle Combinations: Compound Adjectives

Words like densely-populated are compound adjectives and they are made up of two or more words, normally with hyphens between them. It means something that is dense, contains a lot of things or people in a small area. Thus a densely-populated town or city is one with a high population counted within the city boundaries. A densely-wooded hill would be one that is difficult to get through because the trees are so close together.

Adj / Adv + Past Participle

Adjective or adverb plus past participle is one of the most common patterns for forming compound adjectives. Some common examples would include: cold-blooded, холоднокровний, байдужий; kind-hearted, щиросердий, м'якосердий; old-fashioned, старомодний, open-minded, неупереджений, brightly-lit, яскраво освітлений, deeply-rooted, (глибоко) вкорінений, densely-populated, well-behaved, добре вихований;

Compare:

Most animals are warm-blooded but all reptiles are cold-blooded. He was a cold-blooded murderer and showed no emotion of any kind. She lived in an old-fashioned house, but was kind-hearted and open-minded. Nevertheless, she held deeply-rooted beliefs about the sanctity of marriage. The dimly- / brightly-lit streets in our town encourage / discourage burglars.

Note that adverb / past participle combinations when they are used with a copular verb like be or seem, and come after the noun they modify, are not hyphenated:

The streets in our town are dimly / brightly lit and encourage / discourage burglars.

There are sometimes many possible combinations, e.g. broad-minded, ‘з широким кругозором’ narrow-minded, absent-minded, ‘неуважний’ strong-minded, ‘енергійний, розумний’, as well as open-minded. It is partly a matter of knowing which adjectives or adverbs collocate or go with which participles and nouns. We have brightly-lit streets, but also brightly-coloured dresses or swimsuits or sweets.

Compound adjectives are regarded as productive features of English which means that use is not so restricted as it is in many categories of grammar. New combinations are always possible, so if you think something may work, try it out with your English-speaking friends, and see if it is meaningful. For example, brightly-patterned curtains illustrates the productive nature of this combination, as would brightly-shining stars, and here we come to a new pattern, which is also very common:

Adj / adv / noun + Present Participle

Here are some common examples: good-looking; гарний, красивий, hard-wearing; пружний; еластичний; free-standing; far-reaching; далекосяжний; long-lasting, never-ending, безперервний; нескінчений; labour-saving, що заощаджує працю; раціоналізаторський; mouth-watering; record-breaking.

Compare:

The good-looking chef was dressed in hard-wearing clothing and sitting in front of a free-standing cooker. The dishes he had prepared with all the labour-saving devices at his disposal were all mouth-watering. We signed a long-lasting agreement for his services which we hoped would be never-ending.

Other common patterns for compound adjectives include:

Noun + Past Participle

shop-soiled, tongue-tied, (worn, faded, tarnished, etc., from being displayed in a shop or store); недорікуватий, недомовний, sun-dried, висушений на сонці; в'ялений.

NOUN + ADJECTIVE

trouble-free, надійний, безвідмовний, безперебійний; lead-free, world-famous.

Adj + Noun

deep-sea (of, found in, or characteristic of the deep parts of the sea), full-length ( на всю довжину, на весь зріст),. last-minute ( given or done at the latest possible time).

NUMBER + NOUN

two-door, twenty-page, forty-mile.

When they refused to exchange the shop-soiled item, I was tongue-tied and didn't know what to say. If you want trouble-free motoring, make sure you use only lead-free petrol.

The sun-dried tomatoes that we sell are world-famous. She was wearing a full-length dress, quite unsuitable for deep-sea diving.

The forty-mile journey in the two-door, open-top convertible was ill-advised in such inclement weather.

Try out other combinations of these patterns for yourselves, e.g. four-door saloon, five-page document, well-advised, etc. Make a note of compound adjectives that you come across in your reading and note the way they are used with particular nouns.

Practice # 5

ADJECTIVES AS A PART OF SPEECH