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Thread: About Past / Present Participle

  1. #1
    jiyoun01 is offline Newbie
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    Default About Past / Present Participle

    Hello, I'm Jiyeon.
    I'm confused with the meaning of participles.

    ex. The (government-owning / government-owned) building has been remodeled in the last 8 months.

    I chose the former, but the correct answer is the latter.
    How can I understand the difference between them?
    I could understand that the building is the subject which was owned by the government.
    However, in the sentence, is it possible that I can use the present participle cause the government is the subject which owns the building?
    Or, is the reason why I can't use the present particible is that the verb 'own' is the non-action verb?

    It will be helpful if you answer this question for me. Thanks for reading.

    Jiyeon.

  2. #2
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    emsr2d2 is offline Moderator
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    Default Re: About Past / Present Participle

    A "government-owning building" would only be read to mean a building which owns a government. That's not just extremely unlikely, but actually impossible.
    Rover_KE and charliedeut like this.
    Remember - correct capitalisation, punctuation and spacing make posts much easier to read.

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    Rover_KE is offline Moderator
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    Default Re: About Past / Present Participle

    Here, the past participle is used as an adjective.

    This is very common — 'a broken glass', 'a self-inflicted wound' etc.

    Rover
    charliedeut likes this.

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