9. Participial Phrases and Participles as Adjectives. English Grammar Lesson

Grammar, English. Yossarian the Grammarian gives you the lowdown on participial phrases.

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[regan4000]

Awesome videos as always....

Shouldn't "am" be underlined along with "wearing" in the first sentence to form the present participle?

Thanks.

[mrthoth]

@regan4000 Participles are one word long. In "am wearing", the two words together make the verb, but only "wearing" is a participle, and verb is its part of speech. "Am" is an auxiliary (helping) verb here.

[regan4000]

@mrthoth Okay, thanks!. So, let me get this right, to have a past participle, you have to have "have worn", and for the present participle you have to have "am wearing", but without the "to have" or "to be" it's just a participle? Am I correct, or way off?

[mrthoth]

@regan4000 In "Tomorrow I will already have stolen the car," and in "The stolen care will never be found," "stolen" is a past participle. The word "stolen" is always a past participle, but it cannot be a verb without the presence of a form of "be" or "have". Present participles cannot be verbs without appearing with a form of "be". But in "I am dancing" and "The dancing bear is funny," "dancing" is a present participle. It's only a verb, however, in "I am dancing".

[mrthoth]

@regan4000 If a word is a participle, it is ALWAYS either a present or past participle. There is no such thing as a participle that is not a present or a past participle.

[benjkeller]

@mrthoth Does the participial phrase always end on a noun?

[mrthoth]

@benjkeller No. Consider this: "Reacting quickly, Jan ran for the door." "Reacting quickly" is a participial phrase, and it ends with an adverb.

[STANLEYLKH]

The water drained slowly in the pipe clogged with dog hair.

Clogged with dog hair modifies the noun pipe.

Why couldn't say : the water drained slowly in the pipe, clogging with dog hair.

[regan4000]

@mrthoth Amazing... I just an epiphany! I get it now! Thanks a lot!

[TeddylovesNPH]

One thing that really helps with finding participial phrases is that you can take the phrase out and sentence usually makes sense. That's how I can distinguish the difference between gerunds and participial...I hope this helped some of you out. :)