What are participles & participial phrases?

Participles are forms of verbs that end in -ing, -en, -d, -t, or -n. 

As you might expect, participles can functions as verbs, but they can also do something surprising: they can function as adjectives. (Plot twist!) In this lesson, we'll be focusing on participles as adjectives.

Words that are formed from verbs but don't act as verbs are called verbals. There are two other kinds of verbals: gerunds and infinitives. 

In order to understand what participles do, we need to review what adjectives are. 

• Adjectives are words that modify nouns. 
• Nouns are words that name people, places, things, or ideas. 

Blue is an adjective. It's describing the noun marker. 

Soft is an adjective. It's describing the noun sweater. 

Remember that participles are verb forms acting as adjectives. Let's look at some examples. Try to figure out how each one is a participle. (That means you should notice how each one is made from a verb but is acting as an adjective. Can you figure out what noun each participle is modifying?) 

Shooting is a participle. It's formed from the verb shoot, it ends in -ing, and it's modifying the noun star.

Crying is a participle. It's formed from the verb cry, it ends in -ing and it's modifying the noun babies.

Frozen is a participle. It's formed from the verb freeze, it ends in -en, and it's modifying the noun food.

Burnt is a participle. It's formed from the verb burn, it ends in -t, and it's modifying the noun toast.

Since these act as adjectives, they're diagrammed in a very similar way to how adjectives are diagrammed.

Notice that we diagram adjectives on a slanted line underneath the word that the adjective is modifying.

When we diagram participles, we also put them a slanted line under the noun that they are modifying, but we add a curve to the line so that we can easily see it's a participle and not an adjective. 

Phrases are groups of words, without both a subject and a verb, functioning as a single part of speech.

Participial phrases consist of a participle along with all of its modifiers and complements. "Modifiers and complements" refer to any adjectives, adverbs, predicate nouns, predicate adjectives, direct objects, and more.

Here are three examples. Notice that each phrase is acting as an adjective. (That means that each phrase is modifying a noun.)

• The participial phrase is crying in the night.
• Crying is the participle, and in the night is an adverbial prepositional phrase modifying crying. The whole thing is functioning as one unit. 
• It modifies the noun babies.

• The participial phrase is frozen for over five years.
• Frozen is the participle, and for over five years is an adverbial prepositional phrase modifying frozen. The whole thing is functioing as one unit.
• It is modifies the noun food.

• The participial phrase is throwing rocks across the water.
• Throwing is the participle, rocks is the participle's direct object, and across the water is a prepositional phrase modifying throwing. The whole thing is functioning as one unit.
• It modifies the noun friend.

Reduced adjective clauses refer to participial phrases that have been formed by "reducing" dependent adjective clauses. Let's look at an example.

We can take a dependent adjective clause (who was watering her plants) and turn it into a participle by removing the subject (who) and helping verb (was). We are left with a participial phrase (watering her plants). Since this process involves "reducing" the clause, we call the participial phrase that we created a "reduced adjective clause." 

• Step 1: Find the participle. (throwing)
  
  
• Step 2: Find the noun that it modifies. (friend)
  
  
• Step 3: Find the rest of the phrase. (rocks across the water)
  
  
• Step 4: Figure out what the rest of the phrase is doing.

This is where your other grammar knowledge comes into play. In order to diagram this, you need to know that rocks is a direct object and across the water is a prepositional phrase.

This prepositional phrase is modifying throwing.

That means that we diagram the prepositional phrase underneath throwing.

Diagram rocks as if throwing is a normal verb.

When a participial phrase doesn't have a noun or pronoun to modify, it dangles. This is called a dangling participle. Click on that link to learn more.