If interrupted she will stop talking. – Future

Voice distinctions of participles

1. Participle I of transitive verbs has special forms for the Active and the Passive voice.

The girl looked at the woman as if asking for help. – Indefinite Active

Being asked for help she will never refuse. – Indefinite Passive

Having asked the question that had tortured him, he felt relief. – Perfect Active

Having been asked the same question again he felt irritation. – Perfect Passive

The passive form of Participle I shows that the subject of the sentence or the person or thing expressed in the participle construction are affected by the action denoted by the Participle.

Being recognized immediately wherever he came he began to avoid public places.

I saw him being followed.

2. Participle II has no voice distinctions but Participle II of transitive verbs has а passive meaning.

The masterpieces exhibited in the British Museum are worth seeing.

There are intransitive verbs whose Participles II can have active meaning:

advanced students, developed countries, fallen leaves, faded colours, a retired teacher, a swollen knee, a vanished image.

Forms of participles

PARTICIPLE I

TENSE / VOICE	Active	Passive
Indefinite (Non-perfect)	doing	being done
Perfect	having done	having been done

The negative forms are made by putting the negative particle ‘not’ before the participle.

Participle II

Participle II has only one form as it has no tense or voice distinctions.

Syntactic functions of рarтiciple I

Participle I can be used in different syntactic functions. It can be used as attribute, predicative, adverbial modifier and parentheses. If it takes an object or is modified by an adverb, the whole participle phrase performs the syntactic function.

1. Attribute.

As an attribute Participle I denotes а feature belonging to the object at the present time or simultaneous to the action denoted by the finite verb form or some permanent feature. That’s why Participle I Indefinite is used in this syntactic function.

There’s а dinner at the White House Friday night honouring the new Canadian Prime Minister. (M. H. Clark)

But the child in this picture clearly had trusted the man holding her.

(M. H. Clark)

Do you know the law explaining this phenomenon?

Participle I Indefinite Passive is seldom used as an attribute.

The equipment being used now is out-of-date.

Participle II or a subordinate clause will be preferable:

The equipment used now is out-of-date.

The equipment that is used now is out-of-date.

Participle I Perfect is not used in this syntactic function. An attributive subordinate clause is used to denote а feature which belonged to the object prior to the action of the finite verb.

She had absolutely no background - а father who drank himself to death when she was six, а mother content among the pots and pans... (M. H. Clark)

Attributes expressed by Participle I can be both in pre-position and in post-position to а modified word. As а rule, а participle is in pre-position when it doesn’t have accompanying words and it is in post-position when it has accompanying words such as an object or an adverbial modifier.

She was like а rising star.

There’ll be reports waiting for us at home.

Participle I used as a limiting attribute is in post-position to the modified noun:

Will you greet the people coming?

There are participles, which due to their lexical meaning can modify а limited number of nouns. They are participles denoting states or qualities which cannot be permanent. That’s why it is preferable to say ‘а smiling face’ than ‘а smiling person’. However, these participles can be used as attributes denoting а quality limited in time.

She was looking at the smiling person in the picture, remembering the day when the picture was taken. (M. H. Clark)