The Participle and the Participial Phrase

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The Participle and the Participial Phrase
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What is a Participle?

1. Looks like a verb a verby looking word
2. Ends in ing or ed (some irregularly
   formedknown)
3. Behaves as an adjective in the sentence
4. Modifies nouns and pronouns

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What Does a Participle Look Like?

• EX Leaping the fence, the cat surprised me.
• Leaping looks like a verb, but it really
  describes the cat. Surprised is the verb.
• EX Defeated teams should congratulate the
  winners.
• Defeated looks like a verb, but it is an
  adjective that describes teams.

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Your Turn To Identify
Participles-

• A peeled and sliced cucumber needs to be added to
  the salad.
• Look for ing and ed words
• Decide if the words act as adjectives or verbs
• Those acting as adjectives are participles

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Your Turn To Identify
Participles-

• A peeled and sliced cucumber needs to be added to
  the salad.
• Peeled describes cucumberadjective, thus a
  participle
• Sliced describes cucumberadjective, thus a
  participle
• Needs is the action of the sentenceverb

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What is a Participial Phrase?

• It begins with the participle (-ing or ed word
  acting as an adjective) and also contains other
  related wordsprepositional phrase, nouns,
  pronouns, adjectives, adverbs

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What
Does a Participial Phrase Look Like?

• Outwitting the hounds, the raccoons easily
  escaped.
• Outwitting is the participledescribes raccoons
• The hounds relates to outwittingtells what was
  outwitted
• Outwitting the hounds is the participial phrase
• It tells more information about the raccoons

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What Does a Participial Phrase Look Like?

• I saw her fishing contentedly.
• Fishing is the participledescribes her
• Contentedly is related to fishingdescribes how
  she was fishing
• Fishing contentedly is the participle phrase

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Your Turn To Identify Participial
Phrases-

• Tackled on the one-yard line, Sam fumbled the
  ball.
• Look for ing and ed words
• Decide if the words act as adjectives or verbs
• Those acting as adjectives are participles and
  begin the participial phrase
• Identify the related words which make up the
  phrase

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Your Turn To Identify Participial
Phrases-

• Tackled on the one-yard line, Sam fumbled the
  ball.
• Tackled describes what happened to Samadjective,
  thus participle
• On the one-yard line is related to tackled tells
  where Sam was tackled
• Fumbled tells what Sam didverb

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Participial Phrases and
Commas-

• Sentences which begin with a participial phrase
  always have a comma at the end of the participial
  phrase
• Wildly cheering for the team, we celebrated the
  victory.

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What Are You Expected To Do With
Participial Phrases?

• Be able to locate and identify participial
  phrases in sentences
• Be able to use participial phrases in your own
  writing to modify and enhance your thoughts,
  along with adding variety to your sentence
  beginnings

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So, Whats a dangling participle?

• A dangling participle does not describe the
  subject of the sentence. For example
• DANGLING Thrown into the air, the dog chased
  after the stick.
• CORRECT Thrown into the air, the stick flew away
  from the dog.
• As the first sentence is written, it says that
  the dog, not the stick, was thrown into the air.
  Since the phrase does not describe the subject it
  is a dangling participial phrase.

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More Examples

• DANGLING Driving home in the storm, a branch
  nearly fell on my car.
• CORRECT Driving home in the storm, I watched as
  a branch nearly fell on my car.
• DANGLING Watching the play, the actors
  enthralled the audience.
• CORRECT Watching the play, the audience was
  enthralled by the actors.

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A Helpful Hint

• When you use a present participle, the subject of
  the sentence should be doing the action described
  in the participial phrase.
• When you write a past participle, the subject of
  the sentence should receive the action of the
  participle.

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FIND THE PARTICIPIAL PHRASES IN THESE CORRECT
SENTENCES.

• Flying from flower to flower, the bee made its
  way through the field.
• Shown in theatres everywhere, the movie set a new
  box office record.
• Painting a picture, the artist lost track of
  time.
• Left home alone by his parents, Johnny stayed up
  later than usual.

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FIGURE OUT HOW TO CORRECT THESE SENTENCES WITH
DANGLING PARTICIPIAL PHRASES

• Surrounded by Secret Service, the crowd could
  barely see the President.
• Walking along the beach, the waves crashed at my
  feet.
• Catching the ball, the last out caused a
  celebration.
• Dropped from the table, the chair stopped the
  fork from hitting the floor.

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PRACTICE

• Now try creating a sentence of your own that uses
  a present participial phrase.
• Now try creating a sentence of your own that uses
  a past participial phrase.