Question

Combine the following sentences by making use of a participle.
The stable door was open. The horse was stolen.
(a) The stable door being open, the horse was stolen.
(b) The stable door being opened, the horse was stolen.
(c) Opening the stable door, the horse was stolen.
(d) Stealing the horse, the stable door was open.

Answer 1

Hint: Read the given sentence and try to tell it to a person in the present tense. You will get a fair idea of how the answer with the help of a participle should be. Now go through the options and look for the sentence which you framed in your head or the sentence closest to it. Keep in mind to form a grammatically sound sentence.

Complete answer: Verbs are those words that indicate the action performed by the subject. Gerunds and Participles are two types of verbs that end with ‘ing’.
Let’s look at the functions of Gerunds and Participles.
i. A gerund is a form of a verb that ends with ‘ing’ and functions as a noun. It can also act as the subject or object of the sentence. For example- Dancing is fun. Here, ‘dancing’ is a gerund because it acts as the subject/noun.
ii. A participle is a form of a verb that ends with ‘ing’ and functions like an adjective. For example- We watched the dancing girl. Here, ‘dancing’ acts like an adjective that describes the noun ‘girl’.
In the given question- We can conclude the correct answer; The stable door being open, the horse was stolen.
Here, ‘being’ is a participle that acts as an adjective, because it describes the subject.
Now, let’s examine the given options-
(a) The stable door being open, the horse was stolen. It is the correct option because we can see the use of the participle ‘being’, describing the noun.
(b) The stable door being opened, the horse was stolen. It is an incorrect option because the tense of the verb ‘open’ is inappropriate.
(c) Opening the stable door, the horse was stolen. It is an incorrect option because ‘opening’ acts as a verb and not as a participle.
(d) Stealing the horse, the stable door was open. It is an incorrect option because the entire structure of the sentence has been changed.
The correct answer is Option ‘a’.

Note: An easy way to distinguish between gerunds and participle is to replace the verb with ‘something’. If the sentence produces the same meaning, it is a gerund, otherwise, it is a participle. Subject: English