Participles

Sarah Lovinggood March 7, 2013 English 478

What is a participle?
Participles are forms of verbs!

Present-tense participles
Verb + -ing giggling, shoveling, biting

Past-tense participles
Verb + -ed (or other ending to show it happened in the past*) giggled, shoveled, *bitten/bit

What do participles do?

Participles can be used as verbs in long verb phrases, but thats not what were talking about today.

TODAY: Were talking about how participles can modify nouns!

Thats right: using a verb form like an adjective!

PICTURE THIS:
Picture this in your mind:

A nest of snakes curling around some prey

PICTURE THIS:
One writer might describe that image like this:

The diamondback water snake attacked its prey.

Lets try a human tableau! Who can act this sentence out?

Lets add a few participles.

Add some ing verbs that a snake would do: Hissing Slithering Coiling

Lets add a few participles

Now weve got: Hissing, slithering, and coiling, the diamondback water snake attacked its prey. Human tableau part two! Who can act this sentence out?

Participial Phrases
You can also add participial phrases: Participle + other modifiers = participial phrase -ing verb + a nominal = participial phrase Think about it this way: What is the snake hissing? What is the snake coiling?

Lets try out

Hissing its forked red tongue and coiling its cold body, the diamondback water snake attacked its prey.

Lets try it with some pictures.

What is the subject of this picture? The man. What is the man doing? [Participles!] Modify this sentence: The man loses the match.

Lets try it with some pictures.

Subject of the picture? Participles? Sentence:

But please
Always put your participle right next to the noun you are modifying. Otherwise, you are in danger of having a dangling participle.

GROUP TIME!
DIRECTIONS: 1. Look at your picture. Brainstorm some participles that you could use in your sentence. 2. Write your sentence. 3. Prepare your human tableau! 4. Perform! 5. Applaud!

Group One
Subject: Participles:

Sentence:

Group Two
Subject: Participles:

Sentence:

Group Three
Subject: Participles:

Sentence:

Group Four
Subject: Participles:

Sentence:

Group Five
Subject: Participles:

Sentence:

Group Six
Subject: Participles:

Sentence:

Group Seven
Subject: Participles:

Sentence: