Present Participles as adjectives

[=Alex=]

Hello, everyone! It is me again and my strange questions about participles.
I can’t understand how participles describe noun.
On this time I will try to explain my problem with this picture.
Let’s look at this picture.

The boy runs. He is a running boy.
The child plays. He is a playing child.
The child cries. He is a crying child.
“The hand” writes. It is a writing hand.
The girl builds something. She is a building girl.
The girl rides on the bicycle. She is a girl riding on the bicycle.
People dances. They are dancing people.
“The other hand” draws a lion. It is a hand drawing a lion.

I could say all these sentences in the Present Continuous tense not in the Present Simple.
For example:
The boy is running. He is a running boy.
The people are dancing. They are dancing people etc.

Am I wrong again?

I hope moderators will not delete this thread because I really want to understand this!

P.S.
I found this explanation:
Active participial adjectives are formed from the present participles of verbs. They describe nouns that are actively causing or participating in an action.
From here: http://www.mit.edu/course/21/21.guide/adj-p-a.htm

And this: When -ing forms are used like adjectives or adverbs, they have similar meanings to active verbs.
From here: https://staff.washington.edu/marynell/grammar/partadj.html

Based on these definitions, I don't understand why my explanations are wrong.
Because in each sentences they all describe nouns that are actively causing or participating in an action. In my sentences they are only participating in an action, not causing.

 

[jutfrank]

I think you asked a good question in post #28 of your previous thread. Unfortunately, that thread was closed so I'll answer your question here.

What may be confusing you is the different ways that -ing words can 'describe' their nouns:

a floating sheet = the sheet is floating
a moving car = the car is moving
a rolling ball = the ball is moving

These make sense in that sheets can float, cars can move and balls can roll. This is what we mean we we say that there is an 'active' sense. That means that the ball, car and sheet are what can be called 'agents'. They can 'do' the things that their verbs signify.

However, this example is very different:

a walking tour

This does not mean that the tour is walking, because, as you know, tours can't walk.

This then is a very different kind of meaning. In this case, the word walking describes the kind of tour, not what the tour is doing.

 

[Tarheel]

We took a walking tour of Paris.

We toured Paris on foot. (We walked.)

(Please note that verb tenses are not proper nouns.)

 

[Rover_KE]

(Please note that verb tenses are not proper nouns.)

... so it's incorrect to capitalise them, Alex.

 

[5jj]

1. He is a running boy.
2. He is a playing child.
3 He is a crying child.
4. It is a writing hand.
5. She is a building girl.
6. She is a girl riding on the bicycle.
7. They are dancing people.
8. It is a hand drawing a lion.

One of several problems with your question is that none of those sentences is particularly natural. (4), (5), and (8) are extremely unnatural. 6 and 8 have different constructions from the others.

Another problem is that the -ing form is used in different ways, for example:

a. Walking is my favourite form of exercise.
b. I enjoy walking.
c. I met my future wife on a walking tour in the Lake District.
d. My father needs a walking stick to help him get around.
e. Walking past the house, I noticed that the front door had been repainted.
f. I saw an old woman walking down the path.
g. It started to rain wile I was walking home.
(I can't off-hand think of a natural sentence containing the words 'walking man').

Rather than trying to make up sentences, you need to find sentences containing an -ing form that you have actually encountered in a book or film. Telling us the source, submit the sentences one at a time. and try to explain exactly what it is that you don't understand.

 

[=Alex=]

I think one of the main problems is that when I try to explain what I think, I use present simple tense, that means permanent situation and you use present continuous tense (or any another continuous tense), that means ongoing action, not permanent.
And I know that participles don’t have tense.

a floating sheet = the sheet is floating (continuous action)
a floating sheet = the sheet floats (permanent situation, or routine like People eat food, birds fly etc.)

a moving car = the car is moving (continuous action)
a moving car = the car moves (the same explanation)

a rolling ball = the ball is moving (continuous action)
a rolling ball = the ball moves (the same explanation)

These make sense in that sheets can float, cars can move and balls can roll. This is what we mean we we say that there is an 'active' sense. That means that the ball, car and sheet are what can be called 'agents'. They can 'do' the things that their verbs signify.

But I don’t understand why the sheet floats, the ball rolls, the car moves doesn’t make sense for you.
The car moves also mean that the car does (performs) action but in general, not at any particular time.

 

[5jj]

Others may help. I am not going to consider more than one sentence at a time. Nor am I going to consider anything but complete sentences with information about where you found them.

 

[=Alex=]

Also I found this https://staff.washington.edu/marynell/grammar/partadj.html
There is the same explanation as mine. (in Other aspects of active and passive participles part)

 

[Glizdka]

Hello again, Alex!

Try thinking about what you want the word to achieve in your sentence.

Does it inform us about the action performed by the noun? Can you use it to tell us about that time you saw a fast moving car, zooming right past a group of pedestrians waiting for the green light?

Maybe it should just describe your attitude towards the noun. I had a very tiring night because an annoying mosquito was constantly waking me up, driving me crazy.

Perhaps it just adds a bit of flavor and intensity to your sentence. It's dramatic to say that the scorching heat from the Sun passes right through the gaping hole in the ozone layer.

What about the purpose and function of the noun? Have you ever used a magnifying glass to burn a hole in building materials? Have you ever hidden a deck of playing cards in your running shoes because your wife doesn't let you play poker?



The possibilities are never-ending. ;-)

 

[slevlife]

But I don’t understand why the sheet floats, the ball rolls, the car moves doesn’t make sense for you.
The car moves also mean that the car does (performs) action but in general, not at any particular time.

We don't normally say these things. We'd be more likely to say, for example, that "the ball is rolling" -- describing a particular point in time. Going back to what 5jj said, this is why it's important to analyze one complete sentence (or dialog) at a time, rather than a collection of incomplete or invented/context-free sentences like you often give us.

Consider the following dialog:

A: Give me the ball.
B: Which one?
A: The rolling ball. [== The ball that is rolling.]

Notice that, in the equivalent sentence "The ball that is rolling," we are talking about a specific point in time. Due to the context/situation surrounding the sentence "The rolling ball" in my dialog above, we similarly know that the the ball is rolling at the time that the speaker said it.

This is true for all similar sentences where you can understand them from context. For example, if you describe someone as a "running boy," we know that you mean he is running at the time of description. But we generally do not say complete sentences like "He is a running boy" outside of (bad) English classrooms and language books. So trying to overanalyze these invented sentences for their precise meaning will likely just confuse you.

 

[probus]

8. It is a hand drawing a lion.

I don't have a problem with that one. (One of my favourite drawings is Escher's drawing of a hand drawing a hand.) [link]

 

[=Alex=]

Here are some examples from the book.

George grew impatient with his contest; dropping back a little, he took a salt bomb from his belt and blew his shambling Spectre into twinkling motes of sapphire light.
Shambling Spectre in this sentence means that Spectre was shambling. It was doing the action of the verb “to shamble".
But it also means that it was performing action. By this action I can understand about what Spectre we are talking.
Twinkling motes = Motes is twinkling. In this case motes also are performing the action.

The thrashing plasm shrank and dwindled, became a smoking puddle on the floor.
The thrashing plasm = The plasm is thrashing. The plasm also is performing action of the verb “to thrash"
A smoking puddle = The puddle that is smoking. And this action “to smoke” describes a puddle. And by this action I can understand about what puddle author is talking.

 

[5jj]

Here are some examples from the book.

Which book?

 

[=Alex=]

Which book?

The Screaming Staircase (Lockwood & co.) by Jonathan Stroud. Chapter 15.

 

[Tarheel]

The Screaming Staircase (Lockwood & co.) by Jonathan Stroud. Chapter [STRIKE]number[/STRIKE] 15.

OK.

 

[=Alex=]

For what did you ask it?

 

[emsr2d2]

[STRIKE]For what[/STRIKE] Why did you ask [STRIKE]it[/STRIKE]?

Who is this question directed to?

 

[slevlife]

George grew impatient with his contest; dropping back a little, he took a salt bomb from his belt and blew his shambling Spectre into twinkling motes of sapphire light.
Shambling Spectre in this sentence means that Spectre was shambling. It was doing the action of the verb “to shamble".
But it also means that it was performing action. By this action I can understand about what Spectre we are talking.
Twinkling motes = Motes is twinkling. In this case motes also are performing the action.
[...]

It's not helpful to focus on whether the specter and motes are causing/performing the actions of shambling and twinkling. Think of these as adjectives that are merely describing their nouns (in order to offer more vivid details surrounding something else that is happening and is the actual focus of the sentence). From the words, we only know that the actions of shambling and twinkling took place at the moments described. Using common sense and context, we can also understand that the specter is causing, performing, or participating in the action of shambling, etc., but that aspect is not core to understanding. You could drop the words "shambling" and "twinkling" and the sentence would communicate exactly the same thing, only less vividly.

We don't usually say sentences like "That is a shambling specter" in natural language. Rather, we say "That specter is shambling." That's because in this last sentence we are focusing on what the specter is doing; not on describing it.

But then, I am going out of my way to guess what your confusion might be. You don't actually have any questions in your post. As many people have now told you in many ways, it would be helpful if you kept your questions clear and concise, and if you focused on only one complete sentence at a time.

 

[=Alex=]

Yesterday I found a video on YouTube that helped me (I hope so). But I could not edit my first post to add that video.
But anyway thank you for your answers.

 

[emsr2d2]

Yesterday I found a video on YouTube that helped me (I hope [STRIKE]so[/STRIKE] it did) no full stop here but I could not edit my first post to add that video.
[STRIKE]But[/STRIKE] Anyway, thank you for your answers.

Note my corrections above. Don't worry about adding a link to the video (although you could have added it to your last post instead of trying to edit post 1). As long as it helped you, we're all happy. You can only edit a post for 24 hours after posting it so you were too late to edit post 1. Bear in mind that you should never edit the first post of a thread once it has started to receive responses. It gets very confusing.