Verbals

Participles

The third verbal: a verb form used as an adjective. It modifies a noun, so it hangs beneath that noun — but it keeps its verbal appetite and can drag a whole phrase down with it.

What you’ll learn

Tell a participle from a gerund and from a progressive verb
Recognise both the -ing and the -ed/-en forms
Draw a participle on the curved line beneath its noun
Attach a participial phrase to the right noun

Present and past participles

English has two participle forms, and the difference is voice rather than tense.

Present participle, ending -ing: the noun is doing the action. the letter lying on the table.
Past participle, usually ending -ed or -en: the noun is receiving it. the horses startled by thunder.

Both are adjectives. Whichever form it takes, a participle hangs beneath the noun it describes, on a line that curves from vertical to horizontal — a shape used for nothing else.

Participial phrases

A participle can bring its own objects and modifiers, forming a participial phrase that still functions as a single adjective.

The phrase can sit after its noun, or move to the front of the sentence for emphasis. Moving it changes nothing about the analysis — it still modifies the same noun, and the diagram is identical.

Find the -ing or -ed word that is not the main verb
If the sentence already has a finite verb, an extra participle is a modifier.
Ask which noun it describes
“Who was startled?” → the horses. That is what it attaches to, regardless of where it sits in the sentence.
Watch for the dangling case
If no noun in the sentence answers that question, the participle is dangling — a grammatical error rather than a diagramming problem.

“Startled by the thunder, the horses bolted.”

Reed-Kellogg — the phrase is drawn where it belongs, not where it sits

advclAdverbial clause modifier
prepPrepositional modifier
detDeterminer
pobjObject of preposition
nsubjNominal subject
ROOTRoot of the sentence

Dependency — word order kept, the arc reaches across

Comparing the two views

The participial phrase sits at the front of the sentence but modifies a noun that comes later — and the two views handle that gap very differently. Reed-Kellogg relocates it, drawing it beneath horses where it belongs grammatically, so the picture shows the relationship rather than the word order. The dependency tree keeps Startled in first position and reaches across with an advcl arc. Read the tree left to right and you see the sentence; read the diagram and you see the grammar.

Participles after their noun

The letter lying on the table was mine. — lying on the table tells you which letter, so it modifies letter. This is where a participial phrase is easily mistaken for the main verb: the sentence appears to say the letter lying, but the real verb is was.

The clue is that a participle cannot carry tense on its own. If you cannot put yesterday in front of the clause and have the word change, it is not the main verb — see finite verbs.

Nominative absolutes

Sometimes a participle brings its own subject along. The rain having stopped, we walked home. — rain is not the subject of walked; it is the subject of having stopped, and the two words form a little clause of their own that attaches to nothing in the main sentence. That is a nominative absolute.

You can spot one by its shape: a noun, then a participle, then a comma, all before the main clause begins. Her voice trembling, Nora read the letter. and The storm having passed, the birds returned. follow the same pattern.

“The rain having stopped, we walked home.”

Reed-Kellogg — the absolute floats above, unconnected

detDeterminer
nsubjNominal subject
auxAuxiliary
advclAdverbial clause modifier
ROOTRoot of the sentence
advmodAdverbial modifier

Dependency — the absolute is an advcl with its own nsubj

Comparing the two views

Reed-Kellogg gives the absolute a line of its own and joins it to nothing, which is the diagram saying “grammatically detached”. The dependency tree has no label for an absolute: it files stopped as an advcl of walked, with rain as its own nsubj underneath — a clause with a subject but no tense, hanging from the main verb like any other adverbial clause.

Key terms

Present participle: The -ing form used as an adjective. Tagged VBG — identical to a gerund, so the tag alone cannot tell you which it is. The whistling kettle woke us. People sitting in the corner laughed.
See: Gerunds
Past participle: The -ed/-en form used as an adjective. Tagged VBN. Also the form used in the perfect and passive. The broken vase lay on the floor. Boxes stacked in the closet fell.
Participial phrase: A participle with its own objects and modifiers, all modifying one noun. Sitting in the corner, the boys laughed. Boxes stacked in the closet fell.
Nominative absolute: A noun and a participle forming a small clause of their own, attached to nothing in the main sentence. Drawn floating above the clause. The rain having stopped, we walked home. Her voice trembling, Nora read the letter.
Dangling participle: A participial phrase with no noun in the sentence for it to modify. A writing error, not a diagramming one. Walking home, the rain started. — the rain was not walking. Having finished the exam, the pencils were collected.

Practice on a real sentence

This sentence contains a participial phrase — being interviewed — modifying a noun. Find which noun it attaches to.

“John told the person being interviewed the reason for his unusual questions.”

Parts of speech

Give every word its coarse Universal Dependencies category.

Words 0/12Attempts 0Correct 0Time 0:00

Sentence — select a part of speech below, then click the word(s) it applies to

John told the person being interviewed the reason for his unusual questions.