Use Participles as Adjectives

Verbs have four principal parts. For example:

• 1 TRY OUT LANGUAGE

• 2 LEARN GRAMMAR

• 3 APPLY ON YOUR OWN

You can use a participle in several different ways:

• • A participle is often part of a verb phrase. A verb phrase contains a helping verb and a participle.

  Present Participle:	Snow was falling from the sky.
  Past Participle:	The snow had fallen on the leaves of the tree.

• • A participle can act as an adjective to describe a noun or pronoun.

  EXAMPLES	The fallen snow covered the leaves.
  	The boy walked on the leaves. Smiling, he walked home.

• • You can use a participle to combine two sentences. Move the participle from one sentence to describe a noun or pronoun in the other sentence.

  EXAMPLE	The man started to go home. He was shivering.
  	The shivering man started to go home.

Practice Together

Combine each pair of sentences by moving the participle to describe a noun or a pronoun in the other sentence. Say the new sentence.

• 1. The snow was falling. The snow piled up on the ground.

• 2. The sun is shining. The sun may melt the snow.

• 3. Tree felt its branches break. Tree was crying.

Tree agreed to lose its leaves to make room for Snow.

Try It!

Combine each pair of sentences. Move the participle to describe a noun or pronoun in the other sentence. Write the new sentence on a card. Say it.

• 4. Some birds flew to the tree. Some birds were chirping.

• 5. Snow was resting on the tree. Snow was happy.

• 6. The child was smiling. The child liked the grandfather’s story.