Note 58 – Past participles

For the background to my writing challenge, please read my first blog by clicking the following link – http://wp.me/p1x6Ui-4. If you would prefer to dive straight into note 58, then please read on…

Past participles

According to John Seely in his book the Oxford A-Z of Grammar & Punctuation, the past participle is just one of the forms of the verb and can also be used to form different tenses.  Yesterday I talked about regular and irregular verbs which will help with the explanation of past participles, as the rules are different for each of these.

1. Past participle/regular verbs

John Seely explains that  in regular verbs, the past participle is “the same as the past tense form and is made by adding –ed to the verb stem (of just –d if the verb ends with the letter d)”.

• Verb stem: Look
• Past participle: Looked
• It’s use with different tenses: I had looked (past perfect tense)

• Verb stem: Cheat
• Past participle: Cheated
• It’s use with different tenses: I have cheated (present perfect tense)

• Verb stem: Frown
• Past participle: Frowned
• It’s use with different tenses: I shall have frowned (future perfect tense)

2. Past participle/irregular verbs

In the case of irregular verbs, the past participles do not end in –ed and they do not conform to a standard pattern.  For this reason, these are verbs that we must just learn.  For example:

• Stem: Find
• Past participle: Found

Tomorrow I’m going to blog about present participles. 

Hope you enjoyed to day’s blog.  Even though it’s almost 9.30pm and the sun has just gone down, there’s still enough daylight for me to by typing this in the garden, enjoying the warm evening.

Until tomorrow…

Sandra

This blog: https://mywritingnotebook.wordpress.com

My other blog: http://sandramadeira.wordpress.com

My website: www.tipsandluxuries.com (includes first chapter of my book)

Twitter: @madeirasandra and @tipsandluxuries

Reference list:

John Seely  The Oxford A-Z of Grammar & Punctuation, USA