Participle

In linguistics, a participle is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, participle has been defined as "a word derived from a verb and used as an adjective, as in a laughing face".
"Participle" is a traditional grammatical term from Greek and Latin that is widely used for corresponding verb forms in European languages and analogous forms in Sanskrit and Arabic grammar. In particular, Greek and Latin participles are inflected for gender, number and case, but also conjugated for tense and voice and can take prepositional and adverbial modifiers.
Cross-linguistically, participles may have a range of functions apart from adjectival modification. In European and Indian languages, the past participle is used to form the passive voice. In English, participles are also associated with periphrastic verb forms and are widely used in adverbial clauses. In non-Indo-European languages, 'participle' has been applied to forms that are alternatively regarded as converbs, gerunds, gerundives, transgressives, and nominalised verbs in complement clauses. As a result, 'participles' have come to be associated with a broad variety of syntactic constructions.

Etymology

The word participle comes from classical Latin participium, from particeps 'sharing, participation', because it shares certain properties of verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. The Latin grammatical term is a calque of the Greek grammatical term μετοχή : metochē, 'participation, participle'.
The linguistic term, past participle, was coined circa 1798 based on its participial form, whose morphology equates to the regular form of preterite verbs. The term, present participle, was first used to facilitate grammatical distinctions. Despite the taxonomical use of "past" and "present" as associated with the aforementioned participles, their respective semantic use can entail any tense, regardless of aspect, depending on how they are structurally combined.

Forms

Some languages have extensive participial systems but English has only two participial forms, most commonly termed:

past participle, which is regularly formed with an -ed suffix but has numerous irregular forms ; and
present participle, which is formed with an -ing suffix.

Some grammars further distinguish passive participles as often associated with passive voice versus active participles as often associated with e.g. the present progressive tense, but such linguistic distinctions are neither recognized nor employed on a universal basis.

Types

Participles can be used adjectivally as attributive adjectives. Unlike standard verbs, participles don’t typically have objects or the usual modifiers that verbs have. However, they can be modified by adverbs such as very or slightly. The difference is illustrated by the following examples:

The subject interesting him is Greek history.
Greek history is an interesting subject.
Greek history is a very interesting subject.

In the first sentence, interesting functions transitively in a non-finite sense as a participle that expresses the object him, thereby forming the grammatical equivalent of " interesting him". In the second and third sentences, interesting functions as a prepositive adjective modifying subject. An adverb or a prefix can preface adjectival participles: "a very frightened rabbit", "recently fallen leaves", "uninterested people".
Some languages differentiate adjectival participles and adverbial participles. An adverbial participle plays the role of an adverbial phrase in the sentence in which it appears, whereas an adjectival participle plays the role of an adjective phrase. Such languages include Russian and other Slavic languages, Hungarian, and many Eskimo languages, such as Sirenik, which has a sophisticated participle system. Details can be found in the sections below or in the articles on the grammars of specific languages.
Grammatical descriptions vary in the way these are treated. Some descriptive grammars treat such adverbial and adjectival participles as distinct lexical categories, while others include them both in a single category of participles. Adverbial participles in certain languages may be called converbs, gerunds, or gerundives, or transgressives.

Tense

Participles are often used to form certain grammatical tenses or grammatical aspects. The two types of participle in Modern English are termed present participle and past participle, respectively. The traditional terms are misleading because the participles do not necessarily correspond to tense: the present participle is often associated with the progressive aspect, while the past participle is linked with the perfect aspect or passive voice. See the examples below:

They were just standing there.
By the time you get home, I will have cleaned the house.

The first sentence is in the past tense, but a present participle expresses the progressive aspect. The second sentence is in the future tense, but a past participle is used for the perfect aspect.

Voice

Participles may also be identified with a particular voice: active or passive. Some languages have distinct participles for active and passive uses. In English, the present participle is essentially an active participle, and the past participle has both active and passive uses.
The following examples illustrate those concepts:

I saw John eating his dinner..
The bus has gone..
The window was broken with a rock.
Indo-European languages

Germanic languages

Early English

In Old English, past participles of Germanic strong verbs were marked with a prefix, a West Germanic feature still found in most strong and weak past participles in Dutch and German today, and often by a vowel change in the stem. Those of weak verbs were marked by the ending -d, with or without an epenthetic vowel before it. Modern English past participles derive from these forms.
Old English present participles were marked with an ending in -ende.

Middle English

In Middle English, the form of the present participle varied across regions: -ende, -inde, -and, -inge. The last is the one that became standard, falling together with the suffix -ing used to form verbal nouns. See -ing.

Modern English

includes two traditional terms for its participles:

The present participle, also sometimes called the active, imperfect, or progressive participle, takes the ending -ing, for example doing, seeing, working, running, breaking, understanding. It is identical in form to the verbal noun and gerund. The term present participle is sometimes used to include the gerund; the term "gerund–participle" is also used to indicate the verb form.
The past participle, also sometimes called the passive or perfect participle, is identical to the past tense form in the case of regular verbs, for example "loaded", "boiled", "mounted", but takes various forms in the case of irregular verbs, such as done, sung, written, broken, understood, put, gone, etc.

In addition, various compound participles can be formed, such as having done, being done, having been doing, having been done.
Details of participle formation can be found under English verbs and List of English irregular verbs.
Participles, or participial phrases formed from them, are used as follows:
1. As an adjective used in an attributive sense:

A broken window
An interesting book
An exciting adventure
The attached files
A fallen tree
Our fallen comrades

Additionally, participles that express an adjectivally attributive meaning can be affixed to form adverbs, such as interestingly and excitedly.
2. In postpositive phrases. These are often regarded as functioning as a reduced relative clause:

A window broken by the wind.
A woman wearing a red hat.
The man standing over there is my uncle.
We are a people clamoring for freedom.

3. In an adverbial phrase. In the following, the subject is understood to be the same as that of the main clause:

Reviewing her bank statement, Ann started to cry.
Having reviewed the bank statement, Ann started to cry.
He shot the man, killing him.
Maintained properly, wooden buildings can last for centuries.

With a different subject, placed before the participle:

He and I having reconciled our differences, the project then proceeded smoothly.

More generally as a part of an adverb:

Broadly speaking, the project was successful.

4. Participles are used to form periphrastic verb tenses:
The present participle forms the progressive aspect with the auxiliary verb be:

Jim was sleeping.

The past participle forms the perfect aspect with the auxiliary verb have:

The chicken has eaten.

5. The past participle is used to form passive voice:

The chicken was eaten.

Such passive participles can appear in an adjectival phrase:

The chicken eaten by the children was contaminated.

Adverbially:

Eaten in this manner, the chicken presents no problem.

And in a nominative absolute construction, with a subject:

The chicken eaten, we returned home.

Note that a past participle that complements a stative verb becomes a passive participle within a passive voice construct.
6. As a gerund. The gerund is traditionally regarded as distinct from the present participle. A gerund can function transitively or intransitively. In both instances, a gerund functions nominatively rather than adjectivally or adverbially—whether as an object or as a subject. Although gerunds and present participles are morphologically identical, their grammatical functions differ substantially.
Sometimes their morphological similarity can create contextual ambiguity, as Noam Chomsky pointed out in his well-known example:

Flying planes can be dangerous.

When the meaning is "The practice of flying a plane is dangerous," flying functions as a gerund; when the danger concerns "Planes that fly" or "Planes when they are flying", flying is being used adjectivally as a participle. For more on the distinctions between these uses of the -ing verb form, see -ing: uses.
For more details on uses of participles and other parts of verbs in English, see Uses of English verb forms, including the sections on the present participle and past participle.
The following table summarises some of the uses of participles in English:

Example	Tense name	Lexical category	Voice
The baked bread		past participle ; adjectival	Passive
Bread baked daily		past participle ; adjectival	Passive
The acting president		present participle ; adjectival	Active
The time remaining		present participle ; adjectival	Active
You look lost	present simple	past participle; adjectival	Passive
You look charming	present simple	present participle; adjectival	Active
You are lost	present simple	past participle; adjectival	Passive
You are losing	present continuous	present participle; aspectual	Active
He has finished	present perfect	past participle; aspectual	Active
He has been finished	present perfect	past participle; aspectual	Passive
He has been finished	present perfect	past participle; adjectival	Passive
He has been finishing	present perfect continuous	present participle; aspectual	Active
She had been run	past perfect	past participle; aspectual	Passive
She had been run	past perfect	past participle; aspectual	Passive
She had been running	past perfect continuous	present participle; aspectual	Active
She had been running ragged	past perfect continuous	past participle; adverbial	Passive
She had been running unwillingly	past perfect continuous	suffixed present participle; adverbial	Passive