I don't understand Participles

[5jj]

It's a ball that is rolling.

Do you understand this?

 

[Tarheel]

These three sentences are clear to me:
The ball is red = It's a red ball.
The ball is rolling
But not this: It's a rolling ball

That describes the state of the ball. (Rolling.)

 

[=Alex=]

It's a ball that is rolling.

Do you understand this?

Yes

 

[5jj]

If you understand

The ball is red = It's a red ball.
The ball is rolling,
and
It's a ball that is rolling.

Then you cannot claim that you don't understand It's a rolling ball.

 

[=Alex=]

If you understand

The ball is red = It's a red ball.
The ball is rolling,
and
It's a ball that is rolling.

Then you cannot claim that you don't understand It's a rolling ball.

I don't understand how the action is connected with a noun.
1) Rolling is derived from the verb "To roll". It is the action (to roll).
2) Rolling is a participle. It is describes a noun.
From 1) and 2) => it must have a connection with an action of the verb and it action describes a noun.
It is hard to explain what I mean, because I don't know English well.

 

[Tarheel]

I don't understand how the action is connected with a noun.

The action is connected to the noun because that's what it is doing. (Rolling.)

 

[Glizdka]

Hello, Alex! Welcome to the forum.

I think your problem is distinguishing between the many uses of the -ing suffix. It's especially these two comments that make me think so:

The boy is angry = This is an angry boy.

The girl is smiling(verb) = This is a smiling(participle) girl.
But why are these sentences in Present Continuous tense?

Why not:
The ball rolls or not The girl smiles?

If this sentence is in Present Continuous tense, then I understand. I can understand tenses.

But the whole sentence is written in the past tense:
The agents had tiny swords; the ghosts looked like little floating sheets.

The -ing suffix is like a Swiss army knife of the English language; it can be used to do multiple things, and these things don't necessarily have anything to do with one another.

While the -ing suffix can be used to form a sentence in the present continuous (or any other continuous tense), it doesn't mean that every time we see a word that ends in -ing, it has something to do with the present continuous. The -ing suffix can also be used to transform a verb into a different part of speech, which may not have a tense at all. In your case, you're asking about the present participle adjective. As an adjective, it's no longer a verb, and it does not have a tense.

---

What does it mean for a verb to be turned into an adjective? How does that feel? Why would we even do that?

Adjectives are arguably easier to use than verbs. Turning a bothersome verb that requires us to use tense and complex syntax into an adjective can make our sentence more compact, shorter, requiring fewer words to express the same idea, and perhaps even easier to understand for others. Instead of saying "I saw a girl who was smiling", and having to use a relative clause and the past continuous with its corresponding auxiliary verb in the correct form, I can save a few words by simply saying "I saw a smiling girl".

Here, smiling functions as an adjective. We could say you saw a beautiful girl, or an ugly one. Just like beautiful and ugly, smiling has no tense. It's an adjective.

But it's not just that it makes it easier for us. It also allows us to better express ourselves and make our sentences more elegant. We can change the focus of the sentence and rearrange the word order, add more information without making the sentence lengthy and unpleasant, and generally use the language more naturally. It's hard to imagine English without it, really.

---

What's the connection between a present participle adjective and the noun it describes? How does it relate to the verb it derives from?

The way I like to think about it is that a verb has its subject, and (not always) an object. If the circumstances are right, we can transform the verb into a participle. Depending on whether we want to describe the subject or the object of the verb, we need to use the present participle adjective or the past participle adjective respectively.

SUBJECT → VERB → OBJECT
This information → shocks → me
Astronomy → interests → me
This topic → confuses → me

I can transform these verbs into present participle adjectives to describe their subjects...

"This is shocking information."
"Astronomy is an interesting subject."
"This topic is confusing."

...or transform them into past participle adjectives to describe their objects...

"I'm shocked."
"I'm interested in astronomy."
"This topic makes me confused."

...and, technically speaking, the sentence below is grammatically correct...

"I'm shocked by this shocking information."

...though it's not a very natural sentence to say. We usually need either the present participle derived from the verb or the past participle, but not both. "This is shocking information" already implies that I'm shocked by it, so it's redundant to point it out twice.



I hope this helps.

 

[=Alex=]

I have found this explanation:
He went on a walking tour.
In this sentence, the word walking is an adjective because it describes the noun tour. But it also acts as a verb because it refers to an action— something someone does.
Walking is a participle that describes the noun “tour”.
But “tour” can’t do action.

Floating sheets
Sheets do action of the verb “to float”. Does it mean that sheets float?

A moving car
Car does action of the verb “to move”. Does it mean that a car moves?

I listened – heard only the blood pounding in my ears.
The blood does action of the verb “to pound”. Does it mean that the blood pounds in ears?

 

[5jj]

I have found this explanation:
He went on a walking tour.
In this sentence, the word walking is an adjective because it describes the noun tour. But it also acts as a verb because it refers to an action— something someone does.

Can you tell us where you found this explanation, please?

 

[=Alex=]

What is wrong?
Here https://www.oup.com.au/media/docume...ge-sample-chapters/WINCH_9780195529098_SC.pdf

 

[=Alex=]

Can you check this explanation?
The dog barks = It is a barking dog.
http://ual.dyndns.org/Biblioteca/_B...-Lengua Adicional al Español IV/Sesion_06.pdf

 

[5jj]

You have clearly done a great deal of research on this. So much so, that I simply cannot believe that you cannot understand It's a rolling ball.

I meant the words I have underlined literally.

 

[=Alex=]

Does it mean that a ball rolls?
Like a screaming child = means that child screams?
But what about Past Participles?

 

[5jj]

You're quite good, I'll give you that. However, my lower limb has been stretched enough.

 

[Rover_KE]

But what about past participles?

This thread has gone on long enough. Please start a new thread for past participles (which don't need capital letters).

 

[=Alex=]

Ok, but what about my last examples in #28 and #33 posts?

 

[5jj]

Don't worry. I will treasure them.

 

[=Alex=]

What? Are you kidding me?
Do I understand them correctly or not?
Floating sheets
Sheets do action of the verb “to float”. Does it mean that sheets float?

A moving car
Car does action of the verb “to move”. Does it mean that a car moves?

I listened – heard only the blood pounding in my ears.
The blood does action of the verb “to pound”. Does it mean that the blood pounds in ears?
Answer please clearly. No jokes.

 

[emsr2d2]

Floating sheets
Sheets do the action of the verb “to float”. Does it mean that sheets float?

No. It doesn't mean that all sheets float. If someone said that something looked like a "floating sheet", they mean it looked like a sheet would look if it were floating.

A moving car

A car does the action of the verb “to move”. Does it mean that a car moves?

When a car is moving, it's a moving car. When a car is not moving, it's a stationary car.

I listened – heard only

the blood pounding in my ears.
The blood does the action of the verb “to pound”. Does it mean that [STRIKE]the[/STRIKE] blood pounds in ears?

No. Blood doesn't pound. It makes the sound of pounding in the ears of the person experiencing it. It's not normally how we experience our blood (or our heartbeat).

Edit: Sorry about the strange quote boxes. I don't know what happened and I can't get them to look "normal".

 

[=Alex=]

OMG, I don't understand anything again...nice:roll:
I heard that -ing adjectives have a similar meaning to active verbs.
So I don't understand why "floating sheets" doesn't mean that "sheets float".