Past participles, or -en participles, are a nonfinite verb form in English that perform verbal and adjectival functions. The following sections explain how to form past participles of irregular English verbs and how to use past participles in English and include examples to illustrate form and function. Past participles are also referred to as -en participles, passive participles, and perfect participles.
Forming Irregular Past Participles
To form the past participle of some irregular verbs in English, simply add the suffix -en or -n to the base form of the verb. The base form of a verb is defined as the infinitive without the preposition to functioning as an infinitive marker. For example, the following list includes the infinitive, base form, and past participle of some common English verbs:
- to arise – arise – arisen
- to eat – eat – eaten
- to know – know – known
- to mistake – mistake – mistaken
For other irregular English verbs, the past participle form is identical to the base form. For example:
- to become – become – become
- to cost – cost – cost
- to hit – hit – hit
- to shut – shut – shut
Other irregular English verbs experience a vowel change from the base form to the past participle. For example:
- to begin – begin – begun
- to drink – drink – drunk
- to meet – meet – met
- to swim – swim – swum
Some irregular English verbs experience both a vowel change and the addition of the -en or -n suffix. For example:
- to awake – awake – awoken
- to choose – choose – chosen
- to hide – hide – hidden
- to write – write – written
Other irregular English verbs experience a consonant change from the base form to the past participle. For example:
- to build – build – built
- to have – have – had
- to leave – leave – left
- to make – make – made
Some irregular English verbs finally experience both a vowel and a consonant change from the base form to the past participle. For example:
- to bring – bring – brought
- to go – go – gone
- to hear – hear – heard
- to teach – teach – taught
Using Past Participles
Past participles are prototypically used within perfect aspect, perfect-progressive aspect, and passive voice verb phrase constructions. For example, the following italicized verbs are past participles:
- His father has eaten all the pie. (active present perfect)
- All the milk had been drunk by the children. (passive past perfect)
- The bed was being made by the maid when we left. (passive past progressive)
- This house has been being built with funding from a grant. (passive present perfect-progressive)
Past participles also perform one adjectival function in English grammar. For example, the following italicized verbs are examples of past participles functioning as noun phrase modifiers:
- The diamond stolen by the bandit is worth over a million dollars.
- The beverages drunk by the men differ from those drunk by the women.
- This was the airplane flown by my grandfather.
- The pie eaten by his father was for the contest.
Past participles of regular verbs in English are formed by adding an -en or -n suffix to the end of the base form of the verb. Some English verbs also require spelling and pronunciation changes to create the -en participle. Past participles are used in perfect, perfect-progressive, and passive verb phrases as well as perform one other grammatical function. Both native speakers and ESL students must learn to form and use past participles in order to correctly construct verb phrases in English.
For information on forming the past participles of regular English verbs, please read Past Participles of Regular English Verbs: Suffix Affixation to Base Forms to Create English -en Participles.
Sources
Kilby, David. Descriptive Syntax and the English Verb. Dover, New Hampshire: Croom Helm, 1984.
Leech, Geoffrey N. Meaning and the English Verb. Harlow, English: Pearson Longman, 2004.
Heather Marie Kosur - About Me I earned a BA in English studies with a minor in creative writing from Illinois State University in May 2007 and an MS in ...
Join the Conversation