All the sentences in Activity 12.8 have participles in them. Like gerunds, participles are half-and-half forms, and they exhibit characteristics of both of their parent forms. First, participles are verb forms, so one parent is a verb, and second, they function like adjectives, so their other parent is an adjective. As adjectives, we can find them in the AP location in front of the nouns that they modify. All the examples above show that this is possible. Also, like adjectives, they may be modified by degree adverbs like very, really, or somewhat, and we can see examples of this in sentences 3 and 5. Like adjectives, some participles are gradable and can take comparative and superlative forms and degree adverbs, but others are nongradable and can’t take these forms.
We should suspect that, again like gerunds, participles can have their own predicates and can be modified by the same kinds of structures that verbs are modified by. To see if this is the case, do Activity 12.9 below.
Activity 12.9: Analyzing Participle Structure
Exercise A: Locate the participles in the sentences below and see if they have predicates of their own. Underline the entire participle phrase.
The students receiving their grades became unhappy.
The graduate assistant marking the test made several mistakes.
One mistake giving the best student an F alarmed all the students.
The final grade calculated with the F kept the student off the Dean’s List.
The student incensed at the result lodged a protest.
Exercise B: Study the pairs of sentences below and mark any that you think are ungrammatical with an asterisk. What does this show you about participles?
The crying baby kept me awake all night.
The baby crying kept me awake all night.
The defeated team walked off the field.
The team defeated walked off the field.
One mistake giving the best student an F alarmed all the students.
One giving the best student an F mistake alarmed all the students.
The final grade calculated with the F kept the student off the Dean’s List.
The calculated with the F final grade kept the student off the Dean’s List.
The exercises in Activity 12.9 show that our hypothesis about participle phrase structure was accurate. They can have their own predicates. They can take direct objects, indirect objects, be modified by adverbs and prepositional phrases, just like other verb forms. One interesting feature, though, is how the size of the participle phrase affects its position in the sentence. If the participle is very short, mimicking an adjective phrase in form, it can be located in front of the noun it modifies, in the typical adjective phrase location. If it is a long phrase, however, with complements of its own, it will generally be placed after the noun it modifies, where a prepositional phrase modifier of a noun is typically located.
Finally, it is time to attend to the last feature of a participle’s form, and that is the distinction between the –ing form and the –en form. To understand the differences, study the exercises in Activity 12.10.
Activity 12.10: Analyzing Participle Form
Exercise A: Read the sentences below and mark ungrammatical sentences with an asterisk. Explain what is wrong with them.
The graduate student marking the papers made a mistake.
The graduate student marked the papers made a mistake.
The papers marked by the graduate student contained errors.
The papers marking by the graduate student contained errors.
The student incensed at the result lodged a protest.
The student incensing at the result lodged a protest.
The students receiving the grades became unhappy.
The students received the results became unhappy.
Exercise B: What is the difference in meaning between the –ing form and the –en form in a participle phrase?
The –ing form is called the present participle and the –en form is called the past participle. These terms spring from the meanings of these forms for intransitive verbs, where the –ing form indicates the progressive aspect and its meaning of “at the time” and –en marks the perfect aspect and its meaning of “completed by this time.”
As participles, the –ing form creates a present tense meaning, such as in the falling leaves, and -en a past tense meaning, such as in the fallen leaves, for intransitive verbs. With transitive verbs, however, more frequently the –ing form carries an active voice meaning, as in the boring lecture, and the –en form carries a passive voice meaning, as in the bored student.
These forms cause great difficulty for ELLs. ELLs often choose the wrong form for the meanings of their sentences, saying things like I’m boring instead of I‘m bored. Also, sentences structured like sentence 8 above aren’t unusual constructions from ELLs, either. Quite often, however, ELLs simply avoid these forms as much as possible. They know they are confused by them!
