Participle

Participle Examples

There are three examples of participles: present, past, and perfect. Later on, you'll use some of these participles in verb tenses, clauses, and phrases. For now, just stick to memorizing what each looks like and its basic function!

Present Participle

The present participle ends in -ing.

This is its use as a verb.

It can also be used as an adjective:

Past Participle

The past participle usually ends in -ed.

You might think, “Well that’s easy. The past participle looks like the simple past tense.” This is true some of the time. However, irregular verbs often distinguish between the simple past tense and the past participle. Here are some examples.

You will often and instinctually intuit the past participle of a verb by conjugating, for example, "I have + past participle." For instance, you would say, “I have fallen,” and not “I have fell.”

As you saw earlier, you can also use the past participle as an adjective.

Perfect Participle

The perfect participle combines “having” with the past participle.

In this example, “having eaten” acts as an adjective because it describes the fruit as having been eaten.

Participle Grammar

So now you know the three kinds of participles in English grammar. In what situations do you use participles, though?

Their use as adjectives is simple enough to grasp. However, there’s more to be said about their uses in verb conjugations. Here’s how participles are used in continuous tenses and perfect tenses.

Participles in Continuous Tenses

The continuous tense is a simple way of expressing that something is, was, or will be happening. It uses the present participle -ing.

Here is an example of the present continuous tense. This expresses that something is currently happening.

Here is an example of the past continuous tense. This expresses that something was happening in the past.

Finally, here is an example of the future continuous tense. This expresses that something will be happening in the future.

Participles in Perfect Tenses

To explore the use of participles in perfect tenses, take this sentence again, for example.

This sentence is in the present perfect tense, using the construction of an auxiliary verb (to have) + a past participle (laughed). All the perfect tenses use the past participle. There are three perfect tenses.

To start, here is a chart of how you use the past participle in the present perfect tense.

To convert this to use in the past perfect tense or future perfect tense, you simply change the “have/has” to “had” in the past perfect tense and you add a “will” in the future tense. You formulate the “will” this way:

These are the basic ways you use participles in verb conjugations. For the final part of the exercise, you should know how participles fit into the larger picture of clauses and phrases.

Participle Clause

A clause has both a subject and a predicate, and a participle clause will riff on that.

Here are some example clauses.

That said, a clause isn't required to stand alone as a sentence. This is called a dependent clause because it depends on an independent clause like one of the above clauses.

“Because the dog likes kibble” is a dependent clause because, although it contains a subject (the dog) and a predicate (likes kibble), it cannot stand on its own. It lacks a complete idea due to the conjunction "because," unlike the preceding independent clause.

Like this:

A participle clause always takes a comma between the participle clause and the independent clause. You should place a participle clause closest to the verb or noun it explains. In this case, "causing" explains "ate."

Participle Phrase

Although the participle clause and participle phrase are often conflated, they are actually different things. This is because a phrase is not a clause.

Here’s an example.

This is specifically a noun phrase: a noun and the words that modify it. However, as you can plainly see, this phrase lacks a predicate.

Here are three examples. They use past, present, and perfect participles respectively.

The phrases “beaten by the other team” and “thinking herself something of an expert” are phrases, not clauses, because they do not contain a subject and a predicate, and they are participle phrases because they hinge upon the use of a past or present participle.

Which just about covers participles! Hopefully, you feel a little more comfortable with the participle and its common uses in English grammar.