Unit 11 grammar: participle

Present participle (as adjective)

Jim: That banging door is getting on my nerves. I ha­ven't slept at all tonight. I might as well get up and make a cup of tea.

Jean: That's an interesting idea. You could close the door at the same time.

Jim: Oh! What's that flashing light over there? My goodness! It's a police car. What do they want?

Policeman (at the door): Sorry to disturb you, sir, but have you noticed a strong burning smell? I'm afraid your garage has already burned to the ground!

|USE1| In front of nouns

eg The amazing thing about the whole situation was that they were able to live for so long without water.

|USE2| After be

eg It is exciting.

The news sounds alarming. She looks appealing.

The most common present participles as adjectives are:

amazing exciting shocking

amusing frightening surprising

confusing interesting tiring

embarrassing pleasing worrying

Present partici -t (introducing an adjectival phrase)

Forester: Do you see those pine trees standing to the right of us?

The whitish-looking ones with no leaves. Tourist: Yes. Why do they look different from all the

others?

Forester: The leaves lying on the ground give us the ans­wer. And the little insects running around all over the tree trunks will kill off the trees here. Within the next six months you will be standing in a graveyard containing only a few rotten tree trunks. Tourist: Can't the authorities do anything about it?

[USE] We can use a present participle to introduce an adjectival phrase in order to give extra information about a noun.

eg The man swimming through the water is my uncle. (= The man who is swimming through the water is my uncle.) The train arriving on platform four is one hour late. (= The train which is arriving on platform four is one hour late.)

Present participle (introducing an adverbial phrase)

Shouting loudly and waving his arms, the fat shopkeeper ran down the road. A few feet in front of him a small, thin man was sprinting away. Laughing loudly, he shouted back to the shopkeeper: "You'll never catch me. You'll never get your money back." Concentrating on his conversation with the shopkeeper, the thief had not noticed the small boy playing with his roller skates.

Bending quickly, the boy unstrapped a skate and rolled it in front of the man. The thief put his foot on to it and fell flat on his back with a bang.

| USE) Showing how, why or when

The present participle (-ing) is used to talk about an action that happens at the same time as another action, (a simultaneous action)

— I walked out of the room smiling to myself. (= When I walked out of the room I was smiling to myself.)

— I had an accident driving to work. (= I had an accident while I was driving to work.)

The present participle as an adverbial modifier may come after the conjunctions while or when:

Jane ate her dinner while sitting in front of the television.

You can also use an -ing phrase to explain the reason why something happens.

— Knowing you wanted to go to the concert, I bought a ti­cket for you. (= because I knew you wanted to go to the concert)

— Not having a car, she finds it difficult to get around. (= because she doesn't have a car)

Perfect participle (introducing an adverbial phrase)

[USE I Showing how, why or when

The perfect participle (having done) is used when one action happens before another action, (a prior action)

— Having found a hotel, they looked for somewhere to ha­ve dinner.

— Having finished our work, we went home.

You could also say After — ing:

After finishing our work, we went home.

If the second action happens immediately after the first, you can use the simple -ing form (doing instead of having done):

— Taking a key out of his pocket, he opened the door. These structures are used mainly in written English.

Present participle (after verbs of perception)

Jane: One lunchtime Jim and I left the office and went right down to the harbour. It was lovely. We wat-

ched boats sailing by and listened to the birds

singing.

Sally: Weren't you worried that you'd be late back? Jane: Not at all. We even paddled and felt the cool w ater

rolling over our feet! It was idyllic. Sally: Very romantic! But what happened? Did you get

back on time? Jane: Not quite, but fortunately nobody noticed us

coming in.