Past participle
In linguistics, a participle is an adjective derived from a verb.
In the English language, there are two types of participle:
- the present participle, which is formed by adding the suffix "-ing" to a verb (cf. gerund), and
- the past participle, which is formed by adding the suffix "-ed".
Verbs which don't follow this process are called irregular verbs.
Examples
- "talk" becomes "talking" and "talked" (regular)
- "do" becomes "doing" and "done" (irregular)
- "get" becomes "getting" and "got" or "gotten" (irregular).
Many adjectives are formed from participles; as in "I saw a talking horse", "It was the done thing" and "She sold the crashed car at a loss".
A present participle is often confused with a gerund, a noun form of a verb with "-ing".
Other languages have different sorts of participles. E.g. Latin has:
- active present participle: educans "the one that teaches"
- passive past perfect participle: educatus "the one that has been taught"
- passive future participle: educandus "the one that shall be taught"
Old English ended present participles with -ind. In the East Midlands dialect, it merges with -ing, which originally only named actions.
