The second participle

The second participle, that is, forms like invited, liked, written, taken, etc., presents many peculiar difficulties for analysis. In analysing the category of correlation and that of voice in the participle and in stating that the participle has no category of tense, we have so far not mentioned these forms at all.

The use of the second participle outside the analytical for-mations is comparatively limited. We find it either as a predicative in such cases as The door is shut, when it does not denote an action (compare, The door is shut at nine p. m. every day) but a state of things, or as an objective predicative, e. g. He found the door shut, or as an attribute following a noun, more often with some words accompanying it, as in This is the new machine invented by our en-gineers, and less often an attribute preceding the noun, as in "The Bartered Bride" (the title of Smetana's opera). We can note that the use of second participles as prepositive at-tributes is on the whole limited in English.

The verbals. Ing-forms.

So far we have spoken of the ing-forms as of two different sets of homonymous forms: the gerund (with its distinctions of correla-tion and voice) and the participle (with its distinctions of correla-tion and voice). As there is no external difference between the two sets (they are complete homonyms), the question may arise wheth-er there is reason enough to say that there are two differ-ent sets of forms, that is, whether it could not be argued that there is only one set of forms (we might then call them ing-forms), which in different contexts acquire different shades of meaning and perform different syntactical functions. Such a view (though without detailed argumentation) was indeed put forward by the Dutch scholar E. Kruisinga.1 In some passages of his book he merely speaks of "the ing", though in other parts he uses the terms "gerund" and "participle".

It must be said that this is one of the questions which do not admit of a definite solution. The solution largely depends on what view we take of the unity of a grammatical form and on the extent to which we are prepared to allow for shades of meaning in one form (or one set of forms). If we are prepared to admit any amount of variety in this sphere ra-ther than admit the existence of grammatical homonyms, we shall have to develop a detailed theory of the mutual relations be-tween the various shades of meaning that the form (or set of forms) can have. If, on the other hand, we are prepared to admit homonymy rather than let the unity of the form (or set of forms) disintegrate, as it were, in a variety of "shades", we shall be justi-fied in keeping to the traditional view which distinguishes between gerund and participle as between two different, though homony-mous, sets of grammatical forms.

The difference between the gerund and the participle is basically this. The gerund, along with its verbal qualities, has substantival qualities as well; the participle, along with its verbal qualities, has adjectival qualities. This of course brings about a corresponding difference in their syntactical func-tions: the gerund may be the subject or the object in a sentence, and only rarely an attribute, whereas the participle is an attribute first and foremost.

The verbals. The grammatical categories within the verbals.

The second participle.

The second participle, that is, forms like invited, liked, written, taken, etc., presents many peculiar difficulties for analysis. In analysing the category of correlation and that of voice in the participle and in stating that the participle has no category of tense, we have so far not mentioned these forms at all.

The use of the second participle outside the analytical for-mations is comparatively limited. We find it either as a predicative in such cases as The door is shut, when it does not denote an action (compare, The door is shut at nine p. m. every day) but a state of things, or as an objective predicative, e. g. He found the door shut, or as an attribute following a noun, more often with some words accompanying it, as in This is the new machine invented by our en-gineers, and less often an attribute preceding the noun, as in "The Bartered Bride" (the title of Smetana's opera). We can note that the use of second participles as prepositive at-tributes is on the whole limited in English.