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The Exciting World of
Participial Adjectives |
The English language has a lot of adjectives. Some
estimates put the number at several thousand. And while
those numbers may sound frightening, adjectives can be
exciting!
In English, many adjectives come from verbs. In today’s
program, we will tell you about participial adjectives –
adjectives that we make from verbs.
To understand these adjectives, we must first get to
know participles.
What is a participle?
Don’t worry: Participles are simpler than they sound. A
participle is a word that is made from a verb and
usually ends in -ING or -ED. For example, the verb “to
surprise” can be made into the words “surprising” and
“surprised.”
Participles can act as one of three parts of speech:
1) a verb tense when used with the verb “to be”
2) a gerund
3) an adjective.
Today, we turn our attention to adjectives.
Participial adjectives are used just like normal
adjectives. In other words, they can appear before a
noun, such as in the words “surprising results.” Or,
they can appear after linking verbs, such as in the
sentence, “The results were surprising.”
Past or present?
There are two types of participles: the present
participle, which ends in –ING, and the past participle,
which ends in -ED.
Adjectives with -ED endings tell us how people feel
about something or someone. It is less common for words
with the –ED ending to describe non-living things,
situations or ideas.
And, adjectives with -ING endings often describe a
quality of a person, thing or idea. They describe the
thing that causes a feeling or emotion.
Let’s look at two examples of the verb “to shock” as a
participial adjective and compare their meanings:
I was shocked by the president’s words.
The president’s words were shocking.
In the first sentence, “shocked,” tells us how the
speaker felt. In the second, “shocking” describes the
thing that caused the speaker’s feelings – the
president’s words.
In other words, the shocking words made the person feel
shocked.
Common mistakes
English learners sometimes have trouble choosing between
the endings. This is especially true for certain
adjectives, such as bored / boring, interested /
interesting and confused / confusing.
There are two common mistakes that happen when learners
choose the wrong ending:
The person incorrectly uses -ED to talk about the thing
that caused the feelings in someone.
(OR)
The person uses the wrong ending to express their
intended meaning about someone.
Listen to an example of the first problem:
I don’t like Professor Holt. His writing class is so
bored!
In this example, the person incorrectly used the -ED
ending to describe the thing that caused boredom: the
writing class. Here is the correct way to say that:
I don’t like Professor Holt. His writing class is so
boring!
Or, if they wanted to express their feelings about the
class, they could say this:
I don’t like Professor Holt. I’m always bored in his
writing class.
Sadly, we can’t do anything to make Professor Holt’s
class more fun.
Let’s look at an example of the second common mistake:
using the wrong ending to express an intended meaning
about a person. And, let’s continue with Professor Holt.
Listen:
Professor Holt is so bored! I always fall asleep in his
class.
Remember that the -ED ending is used to describe the
feelings of someone. So, this example means that the
professor feels bored. But, we know that this wasn’t the
speaker’s intended meaning. Here’s the intended meaning:
Professor Holt is so boring! I always fall asleep in his
class.
This example expresses a quality about Professor Holt,
which is that he is a boring person.
Here is a tip from the British Council on how to know
which ending to use:
Remember that people can be boring but only if they make other people feel
bored. The same tip applies to other participial
adjectives.
Adjective vs. verb
Another common difficulty is mistaking participial
adjectives with continuous verb tenses or with passive
voice verbs.
First, let’s talk about continuous verb tenses. These
are formed with the verb “to be” + the present
participle. So, participial adjectives ending in -ING
can look like a verb tense.
Listen to two examples with the word “annoying” and
guess which one uses a continuous verb tense and which
uses a participial adjective.
The baby’s cries are annoying the tired travelers.
The baby’s cries are annoying and the travelers are
tired.
If you guessed correctly, you are within the top
percentile of English speakers. That’s right -- even
native English speakers have difficulty telling the
difference.
The first sentence uses the present continuous verb
tense. But in the second sentence, “annoying” is a
participial adjective. It describes the baby’s cries,
which is the thing causing the speaker’s annoyed
feelings. The word “are” in the second sentence is
simply a linking verb.
English speakers also sometimes cannot recognize the
difference between passive voice verbs and participial
adjectives. Both are formed by the verb “to be” + the
past participle.
Listen to these two examples and test yourself:
The child was amazed by the clown.
The child was amazed.
Tell us which sentence you think has a passive voice
verb and which has a participial adjective with a
linking verb.
Well, we hope you feel as inspired by the exciting world
of participial adjectives as we do.
That’s our program for today.
I’m Alice Bryant.
Alice Bryant wrote this story for Learning English.
Ashley Thompson was the editor. |
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