Question

What role do both present and past participles serve in a sentence?

Answer 1

Let's start with a question: are you familiar with what participles are in English? Could you give me a guess based on the terms you see here, "present" and "past"?

Answer 2

well just a guess, they tell the time of when something happened right?

Answer 3

That's correct!
According to the definition, "a participle is a form of nonfinite verb that comprises perfective or continuative grammatical aspects in numerous tenses."


But you can already imagine what these participles do in a sentence if they tell time.
What would a past participle, like "seen" do in a sentence? What time would it tell?

Answer 4

past?

Answer 5

Right? Past participles in a sentence basically describe what happened in the past.

So what would present participles do?

Answer 6

describes what happens in the present

Answer 7

Correct. Words such as "thinking", "running", and "sitting" are all used for the present.

So whenever you see a sentence with a past or present participle, you'll know. Though of course, there's a difference between these and tenses. But I imagine you'll learn that later on.

Answer 8

thank u, my edgenuity never wants to work so thanks for helping me

Answer 9

Haha, that's all right. Good luck. :)

Answer 10

Remember to close the question if it's answered. ^^

Answer 11

ok thanks