Participles are verbs used as adjectives.

Flowerlet What are Participles? Flowerlet

Participles areWhile English
the form verbs assume when they are used in complex tense-aspect combinations such as John has worked, or as adjectives modifying a noun, e. g. a working woman, the bent stick. Adverbal participles have the strictly adverbial function of modifying verbs: Walking home, I fell and sprained my ankle. As in this example, the adverbal participial usually tells 'when' the action of the main verb takes place, while the adjectival participle helps us identify the noun that it modifies. possesses only two participles, the present ( I am working) and the past (I have worked), the Russian language possesses four adjectival participles and two adverbal ones. The English adverbal and adjectival participles are formally the same; the Russian correlates are not. The Russian adjectival and adverbal participles are as follows (remember the color codings for previously learned rules):

The Present Active Participle
The Present Passive Participle
The Past Active Participle
The Past Passive Participle
The Present Adverbal Participle
The Past Adverbal Participle

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© 1996 Robert Beard