Look at these examples to see how participle clauses are used.
Looked after carefully, these boots will last for many years.
Not wanting to hurt his feelings, I avoided the question.
Having lived through difficult times together, they were very close friends.
Try this exercise to test your grammar.
- Grammar test 1
Read the explanation to learn more.
Grammar explanation
Participle clauses enable us to say information in a more economical way. They are formed using present participles (going, reading, seeing, walking, etc.), past participles (gone, read, seen, walked, etc.) or perfect participles (having gone, having read, having seen, having walked, etc.).
We can use participle clauses when the participle and the verb in the main clause have the same subject. For example,
Waiting for Ellie, I made some tea. (While I was waiting for Ellie, I made some tea.)
Participle clauses do not have a specific tense. The tense is indicated by the verb in the main clause.
Participle clauses are mainly used in written texts, particularly in a literary, academic or journalistic style.
Present participle clauses
Here are some common ways we use present participle clauses. Note that present participles have a similar meaning to active verbs.
- To give the result of an action
The bomb exploded, destroying the building. - To give the reason for an action
Knowing she loved reading, Richard bought her a book. - To talk about an action that happened at the same time as another action
Standing in the queue, I realised I didn't have any money. - To add information about the subject of the main clause
Starting in the new year, the new policy bans cars in the city centre.
Past participle clauses
Here are some common ways that we use past participle clauses. Note that past participles normally have a passive meaning.
- With a similar meaning to an if condition
Used in this way, participles can make your writing more concise. (If you use participles in this way, … ) - To give the reason for an action
Worried by the news, she called the hospital. - To add information about the subject of the main clause
Filled with pride, he walked towards the stage.
Perfect participle clauses
Perfect participle clauses show that the action they describe was finished before the action in the main clause. Perfect participles can be structured to make an active or passive meaning.
Having got dressed, he slowly went downstairs.
Having finished their training, they will be fully qualified doctors.
Having been made redundant, she started looking for a new job.
Participle clauses after conjunctions and prepositions
It is also common for participle clauses, especially with -ing, to follow conjunctions and prepositions such as before, after, instead of, on, since, when, while and in spite of.
Before cooking, you should wash your hands.
Instead of complaining about it, they should try doing something positive.
On arriving at the hotel, he went to get changed.
While packing her things, she thought about the last two years.
In spite of having read the instructions twice, I still couldn’t understand how to use it.
Do this exercise to test your grammar again.
- Grammar test 2
Hello SonuKumar,
The second and third are grammatically correct.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello dlis,
That's correct -- the noun phrase 'eating too much fat' is the subject of the verb 'causes'. In general, we call an -ing form a gerund when it acts as a noun (though note that gerunds have can objects -- in your example, 'too much fat' is an object) and a participle when it acts as an adjective, a part of a verb or as part of a participle clause.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello SonuKumar,
The participle follows the noun which it modifies. For example:
Best wishes,
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello SonuKumar,
There is no difference between the examples with and without 'while'.
'Challenging...' describes 'plea' and has an adjectival function.
Best wishes,
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Azim,
There are many different possibilities. If you'd like to tell us how you think it should be with an example sentence, we'll be happy to help you with it.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello SonuKumar,
Those are a lot of questions! Answering all of them would take a long time, as I'm afraid most of them are not grammatically correct. So I will answer the first one.
Yes, the reduced relative clause here should have an -ing form, not a baseform. So 'Are you the one who will come to my home tomorrow?' and 'Are you the one coming to my home tomorrow?' are both correct. Though note that we say 'go home', but 'come to my home'.
I hope this helps.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello SonuKumar,
I'm afraid I'm not completely sure what your sentence is supposed to mean. Perhaps 'Are you the kind of person who needs to be ...'? If so, you're right, a reduced relative clause cannot be used in it because reduced relative clauses are used to modify the subject of a sentence.
In any case, reduced relative clauses are fairly rare, used mostly in quite formal writing or speaking. It would sound quite odd for you to actually use this in a conversation.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello khuder,
The first sentence is correct; the second is incorrect.
The reason is that particile clauses with present participles (-ing) have an active meaning while those with past participles (-ed) have a passive meaning. Here, it is the speaker ('I') who is waiting and so a present participle is required. The past participle would have a meaning of *I was waited* here, which does not make sense. Indeed, 'wait' is an intransitive verb so it does not have a passive form in any case.
Best wishes,
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Zynah,
No, I'm afraid we can't replace the if-clause in that way. It is possible to use a present participle but the meaning then is not conditional:
This would mean 'He came on time and so taught...'
Best wishes,
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello SonuKumar,
Yes, you can use a participle clause like that -- your sentence is correct. Participle clauses are a bit rare in ordinary speaking and writing, however. You're much more likely to hear or see 'after having' instead of 'having had'.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Zynah,
Could you please give an example of what you mean? Participle clauses cannot replace all kinds of conditional sentences and are not regularly used to do so.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello SonuKumar,
I'm afraid neither sentence is correct. We don't use the word 'taking' in this way. You could use the word 'holding' (without 'with') or use just the preposition 'with' (without any participle after it). In other words:
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello SonuKumar,
Both sentences are incorrect. The second sentence would be correct without the word 'taken'.
You cannot use 'by' instead of 'with' here.
Best wishes,
Peter
The LearnEnglish Tea
Hello alvin_ryan,
English has two kinds of participles: present and past. Participles are non-finite verb forms, which means that they are not marked for time, in spite of their names. In other words, we can use present and past participles to refer to any time - past, present or future.
Participles have many uses and I can't list them all in a comment such as this. Perhaps you have a particular example in mind which we can comment on. If so, please post the sentence and we'll be happy to comment.
Best wishes,
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Tim,
Yes, that's right -- that means that the participle clause acts like an adverb. 'Waiting for John, I made some tea' could be rephrased as 'While I was waiting for John, I made some tea'. As you can see, the clause 'while I was waiting for John' doesn't describe John, but rather explains the situation in which 'I' was making some tea.
Since it describes the situation, which, due to the structure of such sentences, will also include some kind of action, we call it adverbial. This is perhaps a bit arbitrary, i.e. one could argue that it's adjectival (since it describes 'I'), but I think calling it adverbial makes more sense and that is how I've always seen it in grammar references.
By the way, there's a page similar to ours at the BBC -- perhaps you'll find it useful as you seem to be interested in this.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello JakiGeh,
This could be an example of non-standard usage, or you could see the 'when' clause as having omitted words, i.e. the full form could be 'There's no sound when [you're] answering calls'.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Ali-k,
Your analysis is good! In other words, the phrase is as you suggest ('A clip-like device is attached to each arm'). The order of this basic sentence has been inverted, probably for emphasis -- I can't really say for sure without the context.
This is fairly uncommon and is quite an advanced point that it will be difficult to find explanations of. This Cambridge Dictionary page mentions other times when inversion is typically used, but those are different than what's in your example. Yours sounds to me as if this phrase comes inside a text that sequentially describes an object, though other uses are also possible.
I'd say the best thing to do would be to make a note of this somewhere so that you can refer to it again in the future. As you read and listen to English, if you find another similar example, add it to the same place you note down this example. Compare the two and notice how they are used. This should help give you a sense for when this sort of structure is used.
I hope this helps you.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Tim,
Please provide a concrete example of what you mean. I think it's much clearer that way and there is less chance of misunderstanding.
Best wishes,
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello JakiGeh,
I expect you could find examples when people have used a similar structure, but, as you point out, it's a bit incomplete. Do you have a specific context in mind?
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Kaisoo93,
I'm going to answer your questions in reverse order. In 'we were soaked to the skin', 'soaked' is an adjective. It could possibly be part of a passive verb, but in most cases it would be an adjective. You could write 'Having been soaked ...' or 'Being soaked ...' and both forms would be correct. Participle clauses are not so common in informal speaking, so they'd sound strange in that context, but they are grammatically correct.
I'm afraid I can't confirm that there are no exceptions to this, but I can say that in general, yes, many relative clauses can be reduced in this way. There are also cases, e.g. very formal contexts, when such reductions are possible, but probably not advisable. This structure is called a reduced relative clause.
A full grammar reference of English would require many hundreds, if not thousands, of pages, so it's not difficult to find grammatical points that are not described in our pages. But in this case, 'connecting' is a reduced relative clause (originally 'which connects'), so you shouldn't think of it as a participle clause.
I hope this helps you.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello SonuKumar,
Grammatically speaking, the sentence is ambiguous and could refer to either 'I' or 'the boy':
However, the second seems to be a highly unlikely scenario so most people would assume the first option. Hopefully, of course, no beating of children happens in any case!
Best wishes,
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello SonuKumar,
I think only 'helped' would really fit in that sentence. However, it has a completely different meaning. You could say 'was forced to' but all changes carry different connotations and emphases, and context is also important in determining whether a given alternative sounds acceptable or not.
Best wishes,
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello JakiGeh,
'have' + object + infinitive (without 'to') is commonly used to talk about instructing someone to do something. You can see more examples on this Cambridge Dictionary page under the heading Asking or instructing.
'watch' and other verbs of perception ('see', 'hear', etc.) are often followed by an object + infinitive (without 'to'), though, as you say, an -ing form is also possible. If an infinitive is used, it has a general meaning or suggests that you watch the action from beginning to end, whereas the -ing form emphasises that you watch the action in progress. For example, 'I watched my children play football' and 'I watched my children playing football' are both correct. The second one puts more emphasis on seeing the action, whereas the first has a more general meaning.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello JakiGeh,
'While' is a conjunction here and is followed by a clause, not by a noun. The phrase 'while being delivered' is a reduction of 'while it was being delivered'.
Best wishes,
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team