Participles

Participles

Read the sentences in the following passage:

People drinking arsenic polluted water for long may get arsenicosis. It is not contagious and you will not get arsenicosis by a man infected by this fatal disease. We must have safe water or purified water to drink. Surface water is safe as it is not contaminated by arsenic. Water flowing in the river is arsenic free. But it is not safe because of its being mixed with different pollutants. Having purified surface water, we can drink it. Arsenic is found in ground water supplied through tube-wells and deep tube-wells. As arsenic is not destroyed even if water is boiled, we should not drink boiled water collected from these sources. Rain water is safe if you have collected and preserved it in clean container. However, there is scarcity of pure water and we must know the water purifying means.

A participle is a form of verb working as both an adjective and a verb in the sentence.

Participle are of three kinds:

1.      Present participle

2.      Past participle

3.      Perfect participle

Present participle:

A present participle expresses an action going on. It is formed by adding –‘ing’ to verb in the sentence. When a participle works as an adjective it qualifies the noun.

Examples:

         i.            A rolling stone gathers no moss. (rolling qualifies stone)

       ii.            The hunter looked at the flying bird. (flying qualifies bird)

     iii.            We saw him running. (running indicates that the action of the verb is going on)

     iv.            The beauty of the rising sun charms all. (rising qualifies sun)

       v.            Give me some writing paper. (writing qualifies paper)

     vi.            I found the boy standing. (standing qualifies the boy)

Past participle:

It is the past participle form of a verb.

Examples:

         i.            A burnt child dreads the fire. (burnt qualifies child)

       ii.            The Minister came to visit the eroded riverbanks.(eroded qualifies riverbanks)

     iii.            There is a broken chair in the room.(broken qualifies chair)

     iv.            They will not receive the rejected goods.(rejected qualifies goods)

       v.            Asmal has built a house. (built indicates what Asmal has done)

Perfect participle:

It is formed by using having before the past participle.

Examples:

         i.            Having reached home, he went straight to his mother.

       ii.            Having read the book, he gave it to me.

     iii.            Having seen the film, we shed tears.

     iv.            Having been informed of the incident, he went to the spot.

Exercise:

1.      Fill in the following passage using right participles from the box:

reaching, ringing, being, closed, standing, caught, caused, plying, unlicensed, waiting, coming, taken

Before reaching the school, he heard the final bell (a)______ (b)______ school, he found the gate (c)______ . So he could not enter the class (d)______ by the class teacher. He was (e)______ outside. The Headmaster found him (f)______ and wanted to know the reason of his (g)______ late. (h)______ asked by the Headmaster, he said politely that he was (i)______ in a traffic jam (j)______ by the (k)______ rickshaws (l)______ the city roads.

2.      Join the following pairs of sentences by using participles:

a.       I saw the old man. He was walking.

b.       I put some tea dust in the water. The water was boiling then.

c.       We visited the area. The area was affected by flood.

d.       His father has bought a car. The car is made in Japan.

e.       He closed the door. Then he went out for a walk.

f.        The sun set. Then he returned to the hostel.

g.       Shams went to Mymensingh. He met his childhood friends.

h.       They staged a drama. The drama was written by Qazi Nazrul Islam.

i.         Give some paper. I want to write.

j.         The police have recovered the things. The things were stolen yesterday.