passive participles

Originally Posted by AlainK

Th
A little bit like there are entomologists who spend their lives categorizing insects pinned on cardboard, whereas others observe their behaviour in their natural environment.
.

Alain

Hey, dude, there are also those of us who do both. I try to find solutions to the difficulties my students have with the language -terminology and all. Each solution is based on a context. That may be a context that is: cultural, i.e. the student uses totally different terminology to that of English and so becomes confused, or educational, the student has had no formal grammar training and so is uneasy with certain ambiguous terms such as "the past participle". Real solutions for real people, dude. In order to get to those solutions, I sometimes have chew-the-fat. That's what forums are for. They are not simply online grammar books full of untouchable, pristine, terminology.

If you want to teach the term "past participle" over-the-board, no matter who the student, feel free to do so. My 25 years in ESL gives me a feeling that I should go further, deeper.

These are always adjectival:

undisturbed
undisturbing

[Roro]

Hello M56,

"Passive participle" is used to refer to the form of the verb that follows passive "be".

You say that you don't like the statement, but you don't say why

Well, first of all, a participle is not a form of the verb, I'd say it's a derived form of the verb. (For me at least they are not the same thing.) Second, what's the passive "be" ?

I'm not criticising you, just I don't think what I've learnt is so wrong. Labels are not important at all if terms are well defined and systematically organised.

Please correct my English when it's too strange.

Originally Posted by Roro

Hello M56,

Well, first of all, a participle is not a form of the verb, I'd say it's a derived form of the verb. (For me at least they are not the same thing.) Second, what's the passive "be" ?

So the adjective "derived", when added to "form", negates the possibility of a participle being a form of a verb, IYO? Past tenses are not forms?

[Roro]

So the adjective "derived", when added to "form", negates the possibility of a participle being a form of a verb, IYO?

No, no, this is not quite what I wanted to say. The participle and the verb apparently belong to different parts of speech, so to speak. Am I making myself clear by saying so? I don't know... Past tense forms are inflectional forms, not derived forms.

Aren't you convinced yet ?


PS. I was rather interested in my another question more.

Originally Posted by Roro

No, no, this is not quite what I wanted to say. The participle and the verb apparently belong to different parts of speech, so to speak. Am I making myself clear by saying so? I don't know... Past tense forms are inflectional forms, not derived forms.

Aren't you convinced yet ?


PS. I was rather interested in my another question more.

I'm not convinced when you have claimed that past participles do not need specifying into groups with adjectives like "adjectival" and "passive", but you feel the expression "form of the verb" has to be qualified with the adjective " derived".


And is there another form of the verb follows passive be?

[Roro]

Apparently we are looking at the same coin -- you're from the head, I -- from the tail. Please give me some time to think.

By the way how do you think about my coinage, {the participle of 'affectedness'} ?

Good night

Originally Posted by Roro

By the way how do you think about my coinage, {the participle of 'affectedness'} ?

Good night

It sounds as if it is slightly mad. There may be problems.

affected:

2. Speaking or behaving in an artificial way to make an impression.

[AlainK]

Originally Posted by M56

Hey, dude, (...) If you want to teach the term "past participle" over-the-board, no matter who the student, feel free to do so. My 25 years in ESL gives me a feeling that I should go further, deeper.

Hello mate,
As I said before, every French child that can read and write knows what a "past participle" is, not to speak of the teenagers or the adults.
So for us, trying to find complicated ways of explaining simple things is just not the option.
I also said that I didn't know the Spanish language, maybe it's very different from the French and there are loopholes that I'm not aware of on the path to knowledge.
So let me give you a few last examples so as to make sure there is no misunderstanding:
In French, we say:
"Je suis gêné", "C'est gênant"
In English:
"I'm embarrassed", "It's embarrassing"
So similar in fact that there is no use trying to "find hairs on an egg" as we sometimes say.
And in Spanish, a colleague told me that was more important to make sure that girls knew the meaning of "Soy embarazada" rather than focusing on how to call the different categories of words, if only to avoid... an embarrassing situation when speaking in front of an English-speaking audience.
Same for the passive form and adjectival uses of the past (or present) participle(s):
"Il est surpris" / "He is surprised" (PP used as an adjective)
"Je ne serai pas entendu" / "I won't be heard" (passive form)
The only trick is that we tend to prefer "impersonal constructions" : "On ne m'entendra pas".

All the best,

Alain

[JJM Ballantyne]

There are no passive participles in English; this form does not exist.