Editing Participle (section)

{{Short description|Form of a verb which is used in a sentence to modify a noun or noun phrase}}
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In linguistics, a '''participle''' ({{etymology|la|{{wikt-lang|la|participium}}|a sharing, partaking}}; abbr. '''{{sc|ptcp}}''') is a [[nonfinite verb|nonfinite verb form]] that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives.<ref>[https://glossary.sil.org/term/participle] SIL Glossary of Linguistic Terms</ref> More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from a verb and used as an adjective, as in a ''laughing face''".<ref>Crystal, David. (2008). ''A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics'' (6th ed.). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.</ref>

"Participle" is a traditional grammatical term from Greek and Latin that is widely used for corresponding verb forms in European languages and analogous forms in [[Sanskrit language|Sanskrit]] and [[Arabic language|Arabic]] grammar. In particular, Greek and Latin participles are [[inflection|inflected]] for [[grammatical gender|gender]], [[grammatical number|number]] and [[grammatical case|case]], but also [[grammatical conjugation|conjugated]] for [[Grammatical tense|tense]] and [[voice (grammar)|voice]] and can take prepositional and adverbial modifiers.

Cross-linguistically, participles may have a range of functions apart from adjectival modification. In European and Indian languages, the past participle is used to form the [[passive voice]]. In English, participles are also associated with [[periphrastic]] verb forms ([[Continuous and progressive aspects|continuous]] and [[Perfect (grammar)|perfect]]) and are widely used in [[adverbial clause]]s. In non-Indo-European languages, 'participle' has been applied to forms that are alternatively regarded as [[converb]]s (see [[#Sirenik|Sirenik]] below), [[gerund]]s, [[gerundive]]s, [[Transgressive (linguistics)|transgressives]], and nominalised verbs in complement clauses. As a result, 'participles' have come to be associated with a broad variety of syntactic constructions.