Participle clauses

Participle clauses

Do you know how to use participle clauses to say information in a more economical way? Test what you know with interactive exercises and read the explanation to help you.

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

Grammar B1-B2: Participle clauses: 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

Grammar B1-B2: Participle clauses: 2

Language level

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Hello Froj,

No, here the meaning is not conditional. Both sentences show events or happening at the same time:

Walking down the street, I noticed a beautiful sunset 

In this sentence she is walking down the street and while doing this she sees the sunset.

Knowing the risks, she decided to proceed with caution.

Here she knows the risks and makes her decision accordingly.

 

Neither sentences describes conditionality or any kind of uncertainty as to whether or not something happens.

 

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

Submitted by Froj on Thu, 21/11/2024 - 18:58

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Do both sentences express a reason or simultaneous actions happening at the same time?

  1. 'Shocked by the news, she sat down quietly.'
  2. 'Punished by his mother, the boy refused to eat his dinner.'

Can I rephrase the second sentence as: 'Since his mother punished him, the boy refused to eat his dinner' (to show reason)? Or should I understand these sentences as describing actions happening at the same time?"


 

Hello Froj,

I think the sentences show a cause/reason relationship:

  1. The boy sat down quietly because he was shocked.
  2. The boy refused to eat his dinner because he had been punished by his mother. (presumably this is some form of protest against the punishment)

 

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

Profile picture for user Willow Tra

Submitted by Willow Tra on Wed, 06/11/2024 - 08:52

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They cleaned up the park after the event . The area looks tidy now.

Is it correct to rewrite above sentence as " Cleaning up the park after the event, the area looks tidy now.” 
Thanks in advance.

Hello Willow Tra,

This sentence suggests that the cleaning happened at the same time as the result. 

I would recommend 'Having cleaned up the park after the event, the area looks tidy now' if you really must use a participle clause. But normally people would say the first two sentences you wrote.

Hope this helps.

Best wishes,
Kirk
LearnEnglish team

Dear Teacher, I came across some present participles (e.g., continuing, walking along, going, looking, and excluding), but they don’t seem to represent reasons or actions happening simultaneously. Could you explain what type of present participle these are and how they function?

1 :Continueing

*one away from the rush of the shopping centre. There is a great deal of bicycle traffic, mainly undergraduates who race along thoughtless of safety, with long scarves (in various colours to denote their College) wound round their necks.

Continuing, I find my way to theriver which flows behind the College buildings and curls about the town in the shape of a horseshoe. This narrow river (a good jumper could almost leap it) is the Granta, and a little farther on it changes its name to the Cam.

2: walking along

The walls rise out of their own reflection in the water and their colour contrasts charmingly with glimpses of the many green lawns. Walking along the river-bank, where the only sound is the noiseofthe gentle wind in the tree-tops, I come to my College, King's College. Across a bridge and beyond a vast carpet of green lawn stands King's College Chapel,

3: "going " and 4 looking

The Colleges join one another along the curve of the river. Going through a College gate one finds one is standing in an almost square space of about

70 yards (the size varies from College to College) known as a "court". Looking down into the court on all sides are the buildings where the students live.

5: Excluding

The student gets a good impression of all the English architectural styles of the past 600 years-—the bad as well as the good.

There are nineteen Colleges, excluding two for women students, which were built near the end of the last century (women students do not play a very active part in University life at Cambridge


 

Hello Froj,

We generally don't answer such long comments as this. Please remember that we're a very small team providing a free service and it's difficult for us to provide answers to everyone, and doubly difficult if the comments are very long and contain multiple questions.

-ing forms have multiple uses in English (we generally prefer the term -ing form in modern English grammar), including adjectival, adverbial and nominal. In your examples:

1 Continuing, I find my way to theriver which flows behind the College buildings and curls about the town in the shape of a horseshoe. This narrow river (a good jumper could almost leap it) is the Granta, and a little farther on it changes its name to the Cam.

The meaning here is adverbial: 'As I continued...'

2: The walls rise out of their own reflection in the water and their colour contrasts charmingly with glimpses of the many green lawns. Walking along the river-bank, where the only sound is the noiseofthe gentle wind in the tree-tops, I come to my College, King's College. Across a bridge and beyond a vast carpet of green lawn stands King's College Chapel,

The meaning here is adverbial: 'As I walked along...'

3: The Colleges join one another along the curve of the river. Going through a College gate one finds one is standing in an almost square space of about 70 yards (the size varies from College to College) known as a "court". Looking down into the court on all sides are the buildings where the students live.

The meaning here is adjectival: There are buildings... which look down into...

5: The student gets a good impression of all the English architectural styles of the past 600 years-—the bad as well as the good. There are nineteen Colleges, excluding two for women students, which were built near the end of the last century (women students do not play a very active part in University life at Cambridge

The meaning here is adjectival, effectively a reduced relative clause (an adjective clause) describing the previous statement: ...which excludes two for...

 

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

Submitted by Abu_Abu on Wed, 25/09/2024 - 00:41

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Hello. I'm struggling with this sentence:

If you can't deal with people whose plans are reconsidered every minute, just stop planning any events involving them. 

Does the participle clause at the end sound ambiguous to you? I think it can mean two different things: #1 those people and you should stop planning events together, and #2 you should stop planning events that involve those people.

Thank you,

Abu

Hello Abu,

I understand meaning 2 when I read the sentence. I have a hard time imagining meaning 1, not due to the grammar so much as the fact that it would be odd for the speaker to refer to themself as someone they themself can't deal with.

I think some of the ambiguity here comes from 'whose plans are reconsidered'. If it's not the speaker whose plans change very often, it would be clearer and more natural to use the active voice ('If you can't deal with people who change their plans every minute ...') than the passive, which we generally avoid unless there is a good reason to use it.

One possible reason to use the passive would be that the speaker is the one whose plans change a lot and so they are recommending to others who are upset with them to just stop making plans with them, which is a third meaning.

In any case, the context would probably make clear what was meant here.

I hope this helps!

Best wishes,
Kirk
LearnEnglish team

Hello again Kirk,

Thank you. 

I have a question about this part:

"I have a hard time imagining meaning 1, not due to the grammar so much as the fact that it would be odd for the speaker to refer to themself as someone they themself can't deal with."

Could you please explain what indicates that the speaker and someone they refer to might be the same person?

I thought that the part "just stop planning any events involving them" might sound as if those people took part in the planning with the speaker, but I think now I see a problem here:

  • Just stop planning[transitive] any events[direct object] involving them[reduced relative clause that gives additional information about the direct object].

If we use an intransitive verb, it will probably sound okayish:

  • The movie plot develops involving each character in this intricate situation. 

​Abu