Editing Participle (section)

==Semitic languages==

===Arabic===
{{Main article|Arabic verbs#Participle|l1=Arabic verbs: Participle}}
The [[Arabic grammar#Verbs|Arabic verb]] has two participles: an active participle (''ʾism al-fāʿil'' اسم الفاعل) and a passive participle (''ʾism al-mafʿūl'' اسم المفعول), and the form of the participle is predictable by inspection of the dictionary form of the verb. These participles are inflected for gender, number and case, but not person. Arabic participles are employed syntactically in a variety of ways: as nouns, as adjectives or even as verbs. Their uses vary across [[varieties of Arabic]]. In general the active participle describes a property of the syntactic subject of the verb from which it derives, whilst the passive participles describes the object. For example, from the verb كتب ''kataba'', the active participle is ''kātib'' كاتب and the passive participle is ''maktūb'' مكتوب. Roughly these translate to "writing" and "written" respectively. However, they have different, derived lexical uses. كاتب ''kātib'' is further lexicalized as "writer", "author" and مكتوب ''maktūb'' as "letter".

In [[Classical Arabic]], the participles do not participate in verbal constructions with auxiliaries the same way as their English counterparts and rarely take on a verbal meaning in a sentence (a notable exception being participles derived from [[Verb framing|motion verbs]] as well as participles in [[Qur'anic Arabic]]). In certain [[dialects of Arabic]], however, it is much more common for the participles, especially the active participle, to have verbal force in the sentence. For example, in dialects of the [[Levant]], the active participle is a structure that describes the state of the syntactic subject after the action of the verb from which it derives has taken place. ''ʼĀkil'', the active participle of ''ʼakala'' ("to eat"), describes one's state after having eaten something. Therefore, it can be used in analogous way to the English [[present perfect]] (for example, ''ʼAnā ʼākil'' انا آكل meaning "I have eaten", "I have just eaten" or "I have already eaten"). Other verbs, such as ''rāḥa'' راح ("to go") give a participle (''rāyiḥ'' رايح), which has a progressive ("is going…") meaning. The exact tense or continuity of the participles is, therefore, determined by the nature of the specific verb (especially its [[lexical aspect]] and its [[Transitivity (grammar)|transitivity]]) and the syntactic/semantic context of the utterance. What ties them all together is that they describe the subject of the verb from which they derive. The passive participles in certain dialects can be used as a sort of [[passive voice]], but more often than not, they are used in their various lexicalized senses as adjectives or nouns.

===Hebrew===
Like Arabic, Hebrew has two types of participles (בינוני ''bênônî''): an active participle (בינוני פועל ''bênônî pô'ēl'') and a passive participle (בינוני פעול ''bênônî pā'ûl''). These participles are inflected for gender and number. The active participle takes a variety of syntactic roles, such as a verb in present tense, a noun, and an adjective.{{citation needed|date=July 2021}}

Hebrew has a syntactic construction of the verb "to be" (הָיָה) ''hayá'' in the past tense, and the active participle that cognates to the [[past progressive]] tense in English. For example, the word עבדתי ''avádti'' means "I worked", and הייתי עובד ''hayíti ovéd'' means "I was working". Another use of this syntactic structure is equivalent to "used to" in English. For example, דויד בילדותו היה גר בארצות הברית ''davíd b'yaldutó hayá gar b'arcót habrít'' (David in his childhood used to live in the United States).{{citation needed|date=July 2021}}