It is a shame because the fundamental point about grammar is so very important and so very simple/ The final statement is the significant one. We need to show that grammar need not be dry or tedious, but can be both fascinating and relevant. | pi articiples Definition The word participle comes to us via French via Latin from Greek and means part-taking . In grammar a participle is a part taken from a complete or finite verb form for another purpose. Before studying participles students should understand the meaning of tense which shows the time that an action takes place in the past present or future the meaning and use of auxiliary verbs to complete tenses the meaning of the terms finite and non-finite Knowledge of participles is extremely important as they help to form many of our tenses. While the present participle is easy to recognise the past participle can be tricky as it is often confused with the past tense. It can therefore be helpful to use charts to distinguish those forms that cause most errors both in speech and in writing. Common errors occur with such verbs as ring - past tense rang past participle rung. So mistakes need to be corrected at the earliest stage before wrong habits set in. Participles occur in our earliest conversation. Participles are very flexible as they can become various parts of speech according to the work they do. They can also be added to an auxiliary helper verb in order to form a complete tense. Participles are of two kinds. Present participles The present participle is formed by adding -ing to the base verb form. 116 PARTICIPLES 117 For example eat ing eating Using auxiliary verbs we form finite continuous tenses They were eating - past They are eating - present They will be eating - future Remember - the ing form on its own is known as the present participle the tense being indicated by the auxiliary. So continuous tenses always have at least two parts. Past participles These are a little more tricky than present participles as they are not all formed in the same way. Some are the same as the past tense but some are different again and need to be learnt. Because as children we adopt the speech we hear around us some grow up using ungrammatical forms and many .
