PARTICIPLES

147. We have found that the verb has five forms, made by internal changes in the verb itself,—the present time form, the s-form, the past time form, the present participle and the past participle.

We have also found that we can express various time forms by verb phrases formed by using the helping verbs, shall, will, have and be with one of the verb forms. All of these forms are used as the asserting word in the sentence. So long as the verb or verb phrase forms the predicate—the word or words that assert something of the subject—it still remains a verb. But we have found that the participle forms of the verb may be used as other parts of speech while still retaining some of the qualities of the verb.

148. You remember a sentence which we used when we studied participles, Making shoes is his work. Here we have the present participle making, with its object shoes, used as the subject of the verb is. Now a noun never takes an object, so making in this sentence is partly a verb, partly a noun, and is called a participle, which means partaker.

We have studied and used two forms of participles, the present and the past participle. The present participle always ends in ing and expresses action or existence in the present, or at the time mentioned in the sentence. For example, being, bringing, working, seeing, loving, hating, etc.

The past participle we found to be one of the principal parts of the verb. It expresses action or existence which is past or completed, at the time mentioned in the sentence. It is formed by adding d or ed to the regular verbs and by a change in the form in irregular verbs. For example, regular verbs: learned from learn, defeated from defeat, watched from watch. Irregular verbs: taught from teach, seen from see, won from win.

We have found that these participles may be used either as nouns or as adjectives. As for example:

The crying of the child annoyed the people.

The crying child ran to its mother.

The coming of the new day will bring peace.

We await the coming day of peace.

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