Participles are forms of verb. They’re of two types:
- Present participle or –ing participle: traveling, parking, and exhausting
- Past participle or –ed participle: traveled, parked, and exhausted
Past participle though need not end in only –ed. Irregular verbs can take other endings as well: woven, run, caught, and held.
Participles function like verb in finite and non-finite clauses:
We are considering all options before making a decision. [The two participles have objects, a quality of verb.]
Seeing the storm, we decided to postpone the trip.
The student sitting in the front row always asks the most questions.
The car parked outside belongs to my friend.
The house was damaged in the storm.
The book was written by a famous author.
Participles, however, can function as adjective as well. In this role, they’re called participial adjective. (They’re a subset of deverbal adjective, which cover participles that function as adjective and other adjectives.) In the following sentences, for example, participles show modifying quality of adjectives, and none of verb:
It was an exciting match that kept everyone on the edge of their seats. [exciting as attributive adjective]
The movie was exciting, especially the action scenes. [exciting as predicative adjective]
The bored students started doodling in their notebooks. [bored as attributive adjective]
The kids are bored after staying inside all day. [bored as predicative adjective]
Sometimes participial adjectives can take prefix to form compound adjectives:
Fast-moving cars swerved to avoid the accident.
Forward-thinking leaders embrace innovation.
The sun-dried tomatoes added a rich flavor to the salad.
She brought her hand-painted vase to the art show.
