2). Grammar: participle constructions

Participles are often identified with a particular tense, as with the English present participle and past participle. However this is often a matter of convention; present participles are not necessarily associated with the expression of present time, or past participles necessarily with past time. 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. (eating is an active participle; the modified noun John is understood as the agent)

• I have eaten my dinner. (perfect construction; eaten is an active participle here)

• John was eaten by lions. (here eaten is a passive participle; John is understood as the patient, i.e. to undergo the action)

A distinction is also sometimes made between 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. Some languages have different forms for the two types of participle; such languages include Russian^[4] and other Slavic languages, Hungarian, and many Eskimo languages, such as Sireniki,^[5] which has a sophisticated participle system. Details can be found in the sections below or in the articles on the grammars of specific languages.

Some descriptive grammars treat adverbial and adjectival participles as distinct lexical categories, while others include them both in a single category of participles.^[4][6] Sometimes different names are used; adverbial participles in certain languages may be called converbs, gerunds or gerundives (although this is not consistent with the meanings of the terms gerund or gerundive as normally applied to English or Latin), or transgressives. Sometimes adjectival participles come to be used as pure adjectives, without any verbal characteristics (deverbal adjectives). They then no longer take objects or other modifiers typical of verbs, possibly taking instead modifiers that are typical of adjectives, such as the English word very. The difference is illustrated by the following examples:

• The subject interesting him at the moment is Greek history.

• Greek history is an interesting subject.

In the first sentence interesting is used as a true participle; it acts as a verb, taking the object him, and forming the participial phrase interesting him at the moment, which then serves as an adjective phrase modifying the noun subject. However in the second sentence interesting has become a pure adjective; it stands in an adjective's typical position before the noun, it can no longer take an object, and it could be accompanied by typical adjective modifiers such as very or quite (or in this case the prefix un-). Similar examples are "interested people", "a frightened rabbit", "fallen leaves", "meat-eating animals".

Both types of participles are also often used as pure adjectives. Here present participles are used in their active sense ("an exciting adventure", i.e. one that excites), while past participles are usually used passively ("the attached files", i.e. those that have been attached), although those formed from intransitive verbs may sometimes be used with active meaning ("our fallen comrades", i.e. those who have fallen). Some such adjectives also form adverbs, such as interestingly and excitedly.

Exercise 1. Оpen the brackets using the suitable forms of the participle

1. (to translate) by a good specialist, the story preserved all the sparkling humor of the original. 2. (to approve) by the critics, the young author’s story was accepted by a thick magazine. 3. (to wait) for some time in the hall, he was invited into the drawing–room. 4. (to wait) in the hall, he thought over the problem he was planning to discuss with the old lady. 5. They reached the oasis at last, (to walk) across the endless desert the whole day. 6. (to lie) down on the soft couch, the exhausted child fell asleep at once. 7. She went to work, (to leave) the child with the nurse. 8. (to phone) the agency, he left (to say) he would be back in two hours. 9. (to write) in very bad handwriting, the letter was difficult to read. 10. (to write) his first book, he could not help worrying about the reaction of the critics. 11. (to spend) twenty years abroad, he was happy to be coming home. 12. (to be) so far away from home, he still felt himself part of the family. 13. She looked at the enormous bunch of roses with a happy smile, never (to give) such a wonderful present. 14. (not to wish) to discuss that difficult and painful problem, he changed the conversation.

WEEK 11