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96
UNIT FOURTEEN
The present participle
Introduction
The present participle is a form we can use to express what a person is
or was doing or what is happening to an object. Compare it to English ‘a
sleeping dog’, ‘a smiling child’. In Dutch it can appear in the form of an
adjective or independently as an adverb. The basic form of the present
participle is the verb infinitive + d: slapend ‘sleeping’, lachend ‘smiling’.
Note the difference between the two sentences:
1 Er lag een slapend kind in bed. There was a sleeping child lying
in bed.
2 Slapend lag het kind in bed. The child lay in bed sleeping.
Sentence 1 is an example of a present participle as an adjective. In sentence
2 we find a present participle used as an adverb.
The present participle as an adjective
When the present participle is used as an adjective, all rules for adjectives
as described in Unit 11 of Basic Dutch apply; it will have the ending -e
in most cases. It can take additional sentence elements such as objects or
prepositional phrases. Examples:
Karin hoort haar snurkende broer.
Karin can hear her brother snoring.
Karin hoort haar luid snurkende broer.
Karin can hear her brother snoring loudly.
Karin hoort haar luid in zijn slaap snurkende broer.
Karin can hear her brother snoring loudly in his sleep.
Ik zag etende mensen op straat.
I saw people on the street eating.