Perfect Participle

In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from a verb and used as an adjective, as in a ''laughing face''".

“Participle” is a traditional grammatical term from Greek and Latin that is widely used for corresponding verb forms in European languages and analogous forms in Sanskrit and Arabic grammar.

Cross-linguistically, participles may have a range of functions apart from adjectival modification. In European and Indian languages, the past participle is used to form the passive voice. In English, participles are also associated with periphrastic verb forms ( continuous and perfect) and are widely used in adverbial clauses. In non-Indo-European languages, ‘participle’ has been applied to forms that are alternatively regarded as converbs (see Sireniki Eskimo below), gerunds, gerundives, transgressives, and nominalised verbs in complement clauses. As a result, ‘participles’ have come to be associated with a broad variety of syntactic constructions.

Etymology

The word ''participle'' comes from classical Latin , from 'sharing, participation', because it shares certain properties of verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. The Latin grammatical term is a calque of the Greek grammatical term 'participation, participle'.

In particular, Greek and Latin participles agree with the nouns that they modify in gender, number and case, but are also conjugated for tense and voice and can take prepositional and adverbial modifiers.

The linguistic term, ''past participle'', was coined circa 1798 based on its participial form, whose morphology equates to the regular form of preterite verbs. The term, ''present participle'', was first used circa 1864 to facilitate grammatical distinctions. Despite the taxonomical use of "past" and "present" as associated with the aforementioned participles, their respective semantic use can entail any tense, regardless of aspect, depending on how they are structurally combined.

Forms

Some languages have extensive participial systems but English has only two participial forms, most commonly termed:
#past participle, which is regularly formed with an ''-ed'' suffix (e.g. ''looked'', ''ended'', ''tutored'') but has numerous irregular forms (e.g. ''broken'', ''made'', ''understood''); and
#present participle, which is formed with an ''-ing'' suffix (e.g. ''breaking'', ''making'', ''understanding'').
Some grammars further distinguish ''passive participles'' as often associated with passive voice versus ''active participles'' as often associated with e.g. the present progressive tense, but such linguistic distinctions are neither recognized nor employed on a universal basis.

Types of participle

Participles can be used adjectivally (i.e. without characteristics of canonical verbs) as ''attributive adjectives''. They then take neither object complements nor modifiers that are typical of canonical verbs, but they are capable of being modified by adverbs such as ''very'' or ''slightly''. The difference is illustrated by the following examples:
*The subject interesting him at the moment is Greek history.
*Greek history is a very interesting subject.

In the first sentence ''interesting'' functions transitively as a nonfinite verb that takes the object ''him'', thereby forming the phrase ''interesting him'', which constitutes an adjectival phrase modifying ''subject''. In the second sentence ''interesting'' functions non-transitively; it instead acts as a prepositive adjective that can be modified by typical adverbs such as ''very'' or ''quite'' (or a prefix such as ''un-''). Similar examples are "''interested'' people", "a ''frightened'' rabbit", "''fallen'' leaves", "''meat-eating'' animals".

Participles are often used to form certain grammatical tenses or grammatical aspects. The two types of participle in Modern English are termed present participle and past participle, respectively (often also referred to as the ''-ing form'' and ''-ed/-en form''). The traditional terms are misleading because the participles do not necessarily correspond to tense: the present participle is often associated with the progressive (continuous) aspect, while the past participle is linked with the perfect aspect or passive voice. See the examples below:

*They were just standing there.
*By the time you get home I will have cleaned the house.

The first sentence is in the past tense (''were''), but a present participle expresses the progressive aspect (''be standing''). The second sentence is in the future tense (''will''), but a past participle is used for the perfect aspect (''have cleaned'').

Participles may also be identified with a particular voice: active or passive. Some languages (such as Latin and Russian) have distinct participles for active and passive uses. In English, the present participle is essentially an active participle, while the past participle has both active and passive uses.

The following examples illustrate this:
* I saw John eating his dinner. (Here ''eating'' is an active present participle).
* The bus has gone. (Here ''gone'' is an active past participle).
* The window was broken with a rock. (Here ''broken'' is a passive past participle)

Some languages differentiate adjectival participles and adverbial participles. An adverbial participle (or a participial phrase/clause based on such a participle) plays the role of an adverbial (adverb phrase) in the sentence in which it appears, whereas an adjectival participle (or a participial phrase/clause based on one) plays the role of an adjective phrase. Such languages include RussianThe Russian Participles
Part of “An Interactive On-line Reference Grammar — Russian” by Dr. Robert Beard. and other Slavic languages, Hungarian, and many Eskimo languages, such as Sireniki,Menovshchikov, G.A.: Language of Sireniki Eskimos. Phonetics, morphology, texts and vocabulary. Academy of Sciences of the USSR