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Complex Structures Part 3

This video is the third in a series on Complex Structures. It focuses on participle phrases. Before watching this video, you should watch the previous videos in this series, as well as the videos on Active and Passive Voice, and Verb Tenses.

In this video, we will cover

• the form of participles
• the purpose of a participle phrase
• the location of a participle phrase within a sentence, and
• the use of commas with participle phrases

We will also look at some practiceexamples.

Form of Participles

Let’s begin by describing the form of participles. There are two types in English: a presentparticiple and a past participle. The presentparticiple is formed by adding _ing to the base form of a verb. The pastparticiple often takes the same form as the past simple verb - but not always, as you can see in some of these examples.

Purpose

Participles can be used for various purposes. First, they can be used to form a verb tense. All continuous (or progressive) tenses are formed with the present participle, for example, and all perfect tenses are formed with the past participle.

Participles can be used for other purposes too. For example, past participles are used to form the passive voice in all tenses.

Present participles can be used as nouns, called a ‘gerund’.  As you see, this has nothing to do with a verb tense.

Participles can also act as adjectives to describe a noun. Again, this has nothing to do with a verb tense.

We can also use participles to form a participle phrase. A participle phrase is a group of words that starts with a present or past participle like this:

• Confusing the students, ….
• Confused by their tutor, ...

To form a sentence, a participle phrase needs to be joined to an independent clause, like this:

• Confusing the students, the tutor provided an irrelevant example.
• Confused by their tutor, the students turned to each other for help.

Each participle phrase describes a noun in the independent clause. It does not refer to the noun inside the participle phrase itself. In the first sentence, the tutor is the noun being referred to; in the second, the students are being referred to.

How do we know whether to use a past or present participle phrase? You should get a sense of the active or passive nature of each participle phrase. In the first example, we sense that the tutor is actively doing something (in this case, confusing the students). In the second example, we sense that the students were passively acted on; they are confused because of the actions of the tutor.

Location

Now let’s consider the location of participle phrases within a sentence. In our previous examples, they are at the start of each sentence, but we could move them to the middle like this:

• The tutor, confusing the students even more, provided an irrelevant example.
• The students, confused by their tutor, turned to each other for help.

Or we could try moving these phrases to the end of each sentence:

• The tutor provided an irrelevant example, confusing the students even more.
• The students turned to each other for help, confused by their tutor.

In these last examples, though, the participle phrases are far away from the nouns that they refer to, which can sometimes make it hard for the reader to follow the meaning. For this reason, it is better to keep the participle phrase close to what it is describing within the sentence.

Commas

Let’s now consider commas. In the examples so far, commas have been used to separate the participle phrase from the independent clause but this may not always be the case. Look at these two examples: one uses commas and one does not. Do they mean the same thing?

• The students confused by the tutor asked him for help.
• The students, confused by the tutor, asked for help.

Did the same students ask for help in these two examples?

In the first sentence, only the students who were confused asked for help. In the second, all of the students asked for help.  These last two examples are also known as reduced subject relative clauses. For more on defining relative clauses, see the previous video in this series.

Practice

So, now you know that a participle phrase describes a noun in an independent clause, that it can imply a passive or active state, that it can be placed at the beginning, middle or end of a sentence, and that it may or may not require a comma.

Let’s practise what we’ve learned.

How would you combine these sentences with a participle phrase?

• The stream was frozen by the long hard winter.
• The stream finally began to thaw.

Here is one possibility:

• The stream, frozen by the long hard winter, finally began to thaw.

How about this one:

• Climate change interferes with food chains.
• Climate change affects global ecosystems.

• Climate change interferes with food chains, affecting global ecosystems.

Let’s try one more:

• The researchers were excited by their results.
• The researchers wanted to discuss their progress with peers.        
• The researchers immediately scheduled a teleconference.

One possibility is:

• Excited by their results and wanting to discuss their progress with peers, the researchers immediately scheduled a teleconference.

Notice in this last example that we have included twoparticiple phrases, each describing ‘the researchers’ in the independent clause.

Also notice that while one of these phrases uses a past participle, the other uses a present participle. This reflects the different passive and active states of each phrase. Who or what made the researchers excited? (Themselves or something else?). In this case, it was ‘something else’ (the results) so we use the past participle to indicate the researchers’ passive state. Who or what made the researchers want to discuss their progress – themselves or something else? Themselves. It was a state that originated from within them, so we use the present participle.

As you may have realised, the grammar for participle phrases can be quite complex and you should not overuse them. Refer to the exercises below for more on this topic.