PARTICIPLE (in Grammar), the name of one of the parts of speech into which grammarians have distributed the words of a language. The word "participle" comes from the Latin word " parti cipium," which is formed on the same analogy as " mancipium" and " principium," and means literally " part-taking." It is said, according I to the old grammarians, to have obtained this name in consequence of its partaking of the nature both of the verb and the noun. Horne Tooke defines a participle to be a" verb adjective," which is perhaps as good a definition as can be given.
Tho English language has only two participles, which are usually called present and past. The present participle in ing, is a corruption of a fuller form which had a prefixed a ; and this a was in truth an abbreviation of the old preposition an, signifying in or on. Thus, " he was a-walking" contains the same element as " he was a-hed ;" and the word walking is merely one of the familiar substantives in ing. The Keltic languages form their participle in a way precisely einnlar ; and the French too has inherited from this sourcethe idiom ca &sant. The tom prevent participle is however not very correct, as It often denotes the continuation of an action or a state of being independent of the notion of time. A bettor phrase is liveried participle. This
participle is called by soine grammarians the retire participle, but It is also restive ; thus In the expression " he was building the house," the participle Ls active ; but when we say "the house was building," it must be regarded as a passive. In such sentences as the preceding there is no ambiguity, but when we say " the man was killing," the knowledge of the subject can alone enable us to determine whether the man was active or passive. This ambiguity in the use of the partici ple in in, has led to the modern practice, which is gaining ground, of expressing the notion of a passive participle by means of the present participle of the verb "to be" and the past tense of the verb which is to be employed, as "being loved," " being praised," Sc, which expressions are certainly very awkward and unwarranted by the usage of our best writers, if they are not absolutely wrong.
The other participle in English is used to denote time, and is generally formed by adding ca or ed and d, as broken, praised, &c.