alytical practical grammar - Toronto Public Library

78 ENGLISH GRAMMAR.
PARTICIPLES.
452. A PARTICIPLE is a word which, as a verb, expresses
an action or state, and, as an adjective, qualifies
. a noun or pronoun; as, "The man came seeing"­
"Having finished our task, we may play." See 494,407.
453. Participles are so called, becfluse they belong partly to the nTb,
and partly to the adjective. From the former, they have signification,
voice, and tense; and they perform the office of the ltltter.
454. Verbs have three participles-the present, the
past, and the perfect; as, loving, loved, having loved, in
the active voice; and being loved, loved, having been
loved, in the passive. See 494, 507.
455. The participles, lakcn by tbemsel'>eB, like the infinitive, do not so
properly denote the time of an nction, as its state; while the time of th",
act, whether progl'essive 01' finished, is indicflted by the verb with which
it is conllected, or by some other word; thus, "I saw him writing yester.
day;" c'I see him writing now jn "I will see him lcriting to·morrow."
In all these cnmples, writing expresses an act present, and still in progre@B
at the time referred to j but with respect to the time of speaking',
the act of writing. expressed in the first example, is past; in the second, it
is present; and In the third, it is future, as indicated by tbe accompanying
verbs, saw, see, will see.
456. The present participle active ends always in ing. In all verbs it
has an acti ve signification, and denotca an action or state as continuing
and progressive; as, "James is building a bouse." In some verbs, it has
also a passive progressive signification: as, "The house is building." Appendix
YIII. p. 25~.
457. This usage, some suppose, has its origin in the use of the verbal
noun after in, to express the same idea j thus. "Forty and six years wag
tbis temple in building;" "And the house when it was in building was
built of stone made really-so thnt there was neither hammer nor axe
heard in the house, while it was in building." In the absence of emphasis,
the in being indistinctly uttered, came to be spoken, and consequently to be
written, a; ae, " While the ark was a preparing" (1 Pet. iii. ~O), and .finally
to be omitted altogether. Similar changes of prepositions we have in the
expressions, a going, a running, a hunting, a fishing, &c. Others, again,
suppose that tbis ought to be regarded as an original idiom of the InnguaO'e,
similar to tbe passive use of tbe infinitive active noticed before (3\1'7). Btlt
whether either of these is the tI'ue account of this mutter 01' not, the fact is
certain. It is therefore the duty of the grammarian to note the fact, though
he may be unable to account for it. The following are examples: "This
new tragedy was acting."-E. Everett. c, An attempt was making."-D.
JVebster. "Tbe fortress was building," &e.-lruing.