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For present participle constructions with perfect aspect (e.g. having written), see § Perfect and progressive nonfinite constructions below. Present participles may come to be used as pure adjectives (see Types of participle). Examples of participles that do this frequently are interesting, exciting, and enduring.
This is followed by the simple past tense , and then the past participle. If there are irregular present tense forms (see below), these are given in parentheses after the infinitive. (The present participle and gerund forms of verbs, ending in -ing, are always regular. In English, these are used as verbs, adjectives, and nouns.)
Here, the two events do not happen simultaneously, as they do with the present genitive absolute, but the event in the main clause occurs after the event in the participial clause. The perfect participle describes a situation which was already in existence and which still prevailed at the time of the action of the main verb, for example:
Most verbs have three or four inflected forms in addition to the base form: a third-person singular present tense form in -(e)s (writes, botches), a present participle and gerund form in -ing (writing), a past tense (wrote), and – though often identical to the past tense form – a past participle (written).
The past participle is been, and the present participle and gerund is the regular being. The base form be is used regularly as an infinitive, imperative and (present) subjunctive. For archaic forms, see the next section. English has a number of modal auxiliary verbs which are defective.
In Latin, most verbs have four principal parts.For example, the verb for "to carry" is given as portō – portāre – portāvī – portātum, where portō is the first-person singular present active indicative ("I carry"), portāre is the present active infinitive ("to carry"), portāvī is the first-person singular perfect active indicative ("I carried"), and portātum is the neuter supine.
The three examples show distinctions between finite and non-finite verbs and the roles of these distinctions in sentence structure. For example, non-finite verbs can be auxiliary verbs or main verbs and they appear as infinitives, participles, gerunds etc.
Some languages (such as Latin and Russian) have distinct participles for active and passive uses. In English, the present participle is essentially an active participle, and the past participle has both active and passive uses. The following examples illustrate those concepts: I saw John eating his dinner. (Here eating is an active present ...