The Past Participle – also called the Perfect or Passive Participle – takes on the -ed/-en form and is used to express a verb’s outcome (in one way or another). While the root words are verbs, Past Participles can serve as several different parts of speech, and are applied to a wide range of grammatical topics. Here are 10 Things to Know about the Past Participle form. ONE The Past form of most verbs ends with -ed, though Irregular Verbs take on different forms. The Past Participle form is identical to the past form for all regular verbs, and some irregular verbs. Other irregular verbs, however, might have a different form for Past Participle, such as an -en ending. You can look up irregular verb lists or charts to see how a verb changes from its base form, to past, to past participle. TWO There are only about 200 irregular verbs, which isn’t very much. But some of these are the most commonly-used verbs in the English language – words like ‘have’, ‘make’, and ‘go’ – so we write and speak them all the time! THREE The Past Participle form is perhaps best known for its role in Perfect Tenses, which express the outcome of an earlier verb by focusing on its results, stating an experience, or establishing a status. Since perfect tenses can be past, present, or future, the term ‘Past Participle’ is a bit misleading, which is why ‘Perfect Participle’ is a more appropriate name when applied to tenses. FOUR In perfect tenses, the verb that takes on the Perfect Participle form is whichever verb follows the auxiliary 'have' (or 'has' or 'had'). This is usually the main verb, but not always. For example, in Perfect Continuous tenses, the verb that follows have is be, which takes on the Perfect Participle form of ‘been’. Incidentally, the same is true for Perfect tenses in the Passive Voice. FIVE Speaking of Passive Voice, the main verb of a Passive Sentence always takes on this participle form. Again, the term can be misleading since the verb string isn’t necessarily past, and not necessarily perfect, so you may choose to call it the ‘Passive Participle’ in these contexts. The term you go with should provide clarity, but rest assured that Past, Perfect, and Passive Participle is all the same thing. SIX The Passive Participle doesn’t always serve as a verb; it can also be a modifier. Passive Adjectives are words that look like verbs with the -ed/-en ending, but they might be placed just before a noun to modify it. Or, they might come after a linking verb like ‘get’, 'be’, or ‘seems’, in which they serve as Predicate Adjectives modifying the subject noun. Passive Adjectives can be used just like any other adjectives. SEVEN Participial Phrases are sets of words that begin with participles and serve as adjectives or adverbs. In fact, they act very much like Prepositional Phrases, modifying nouns, verbs, adjectives, or even entire clauses, and you can find them almost anywhere in a sentence. The difference, of course, is that these start with a participle instead of a preposition. EIGHT Whether it’s used in Passive Voice, as a Passive Adjective, or to start a Participial Phrase, the Passive Participle conveys how the noun or other word it’s modifying – or even the entire situation that the sentence expresses – is affected by some action or state. That effect might be immediate, direct, or intentional, or it could indirect or accidental. The Active Participle, on the other hand, focuses on the event of the verb that forms its root, or perhaps the source of that verb. For the Passive Participle, it’s the outcome that matters. NINE Almost all irregular verbs are one syllable only in their base form, except for compound words and verbs with prefixes; for example, ‘forgive’, ‘broadcast’, and ‘understand’ make the same changes to their form that ‘give’, ‘cast’, and ‘stand’ do. If you can’t find ‘mistake’ in an Irregular Verbs list, look up ‘take’ instead. TEN It’s possible for the same base verb to have multiple Past Participle forms, and there are three reasons for this: A. Past Participles change over time. In fact, there used to be more irregular verbs a thousand years ago, but many of them have since transitioned to the regular -ed ending. Some of the less commonly-used irregulars are even now gradually becoming regular. Whereas ‘shone’, ‘lit’, and ‘wed’ were the norm in the past, ‘shined’, ‘lighted’, and ‘wedded’ look to be standard in the future. B. Past Participles can vary from region to region. Much of the UK uses ‘slept’, ‘dwelt’, ‘learnt’, and a handful of others with a ‘t’ ending, while those same words in the US have the regular ‘ed’ ending. For another example: the Past Participle of ‘bring’ is most commonly ‘brought’; however, in some regions even within the same country, you might hear ‘brung’, or possibly ‘broughten’. C. It’s pretty rare, but the Passive Participle occasionally takes on a different form when used as an adjective than it does as verb. For example, ‘melted’ and ‘sunk’ are suitable Perfect Tense verbs, but ‘molten’ and ‘sunken’ are more likely to be used as adjectives. Similarly, a few regular verbs can have different pronunciations, as with [blest] for verbs, but [bles-id] for adjectives. This change is more likely when the adjective comes before the noun it modifies, and may or may not apply to Passive Voice. Regardless of the reason for variations of a Past Participle, it’s probably best to go with whichever form is used by the English speakers you interact with. Language is, after all, molded by the people who use it. This has been 10 Things to Know about Past Participle.
