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participle

Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2004 5:06 am
by hanuman_2000
Sir,


As a rule says that "participle" functions as an adjective.

does it mean that all possible participles function as an adjective.

Thanks.

Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2004 12:36 pm
by Alan
To say that participles function as adjectives means that they relate to nouns very much as adjectives do. It does not mean flatly that any participle may be used exactly like a typical adjective.

Some -ing forms - such as 'interesting, exciting, boring' - are considered true adjectives (known as 'participial adjectives'), while others - e.g. 'writing, eating, deciding' - are not, even though they may often precede nouns in such a way as to make them seem so. The key point is whether we may grade them with an adverb such as 'very': very boring is acceptable, while *very writing is not.