Question

How can a participle be past, present or dangling?

Answer 1

Hint: Participles are the third form of the verb and can function like verb phrases as well as adjectives. The participle generally ends in ‘ed’ (in past tense) and ‘ing’ (in present tense).

Complete answer:
Let us first understand the concepts of past, present and dangling
i) Past - It is a form of tense which tells about an action that no longer exists or the action has ceased to occur.
ii) Present- It is a form of tense which tells about an ongoing action/ an action which is relevant to the present time.
iii) Dangling - It is a modifier that modifies a vague subject or doesn’t modify anything in the subject at all.

Present participle- It is the participle form of the verb ending with ‘ing’. It can be used as continuous tenses(present, past, future, perfect) and adjectives in a sentence. For e.g. I have been waiting for you.
Or The movie was amazing.

Past Participle -It is the participle form of the verb ending with ‘ed, en,t,d,n’ or the same as the first form of the verb. They can be used as modifiers, passive forms of verbs and past forms of the verbs. For e.g. I was conned by him. Or She plucked flowers.

Dangling participle- it is the participle that behaves like an adjective (modifier) in a sentence. It usually appears at the beginning of a sentence. However, it modifies either the wrong subject or nothing in the sentence. For e.g. - Walking on the road, the sunset in the sky.

In the above sentence, it is not clear who is ‘walking’ i.e. this dangling participle or a modifier is not associated with any word in the sentence. Sun cannot do the ‘walking’ i.e. sun is not the subject of this participle.

Note: Participle forms are used with auxiliary verbs like have been, was etc. to make tenses.Whereas they are not used with auxiliary verbs when they function as adjectives(modifiers). To make the passive voice we use past participle with the ‘to be’ form of the verb.