English Grammar in Familiar Lectures eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 386 pages of information about English Grammar in Familiar Lectures.

English Grammar in Familiar Lectures eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 386 pages of information about English Grammar in Familiar Lectures.

How many kinds of participles are there?—­What is the ending of a present participle?—­What does a perfect participle denote?—­With what does the perfect participle of a regular verb correspond?—­What is a compound participle?—­From what word is the term participle derived?—­Why is this part of speech thus named?—­Wherein does this part of speech partake of the nature of a verb?—­Do all participles participate the properties of adjectives?—­In what respect?—­When are participles called participial adjectives?—­Give examples.—­How may a present participle be known?—­Repeat the order of parsing a participle.—­What rule applies in parsing a present participle?—­What Rule in parsing a participial adjective?—­Do participles vary in their terminations in order to agree with their subject or actor?—­What Rule applies in parsing a noun in the objective case, governed by a participle?—­Do participles ever become nouns?—­Give examples.

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    PHILOSOPHICAL NOTES.

Participles are formed by adding to the verb the termination ing, ed, or en. Ing signifies the same as the noun being.  When postfixed to the noun-state of the verb, the compound word thus formed, expresses a continued state of the verbal denotement.  It implies that what is meant by the verb, is being continued. En is an alteration of an, the Saxon verbalizing adjunct; ed is a contraction of dede; and the terminations d and t, are a contraction of ed.  Participles ending in ed or en, usually denote the dodo, dede, doed, did, done, or finished state of what is meant by the verb.  The book is printed.  It is a print-ed or print-done book, or such a one as the done act of printing has made it.  The book is written; i.e. it has received the done or finish-ed act of writ-ing it.
Participles bear the same relation to verbs, that adnouns do to nouns.  They might, therefore, be styled verbal adjectives.  But that theory which ranks them with adnouns, appears to rest on a sandy foundation.  In classifying words, we ought to be guided more by their manner of meaning, and their inferential meaning, than by their primitive, essential signification.  “I have a broken plate;” i.e.  I have a plate—­broken; “I have broken a plate.”  If there is no difference in the essential meaning of the word broken, in these two constructions, it cannot be denied, that there is a wide difference in the meaning—­inferred by custom; which difference depends on the manner in which the term is applied.  The former construction denotes, that I possess a plate which was broken, (whether with or without my agency, is not intimated,) perhaps, one hundred or one
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English Grammar in Familiar Lectures from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.