PARTICIPLE

PARTICIPLE ADJECTIVE

What Is a Participial Adjective?

The participial adjectives are a major subclass of adjectives.They can be distinguished by their endings, either –er or –ing.  Some exceptions to the rules include misunderstood and unknown, which also function like these special adjectives even though they do not end in –ed. They are called participial adjectives because they have the same endings as verb participles. 

What Is their Function in a Sentence

These adjectives are really meant to function like any other adjective: they help to describe a noun. They might come from a verb form, or they might merely imitate the structure, but they always function as a descriptive adjective. Let’s look at some examples of participial adjectives in sentences below. After each example, the adjective is placed in parentheses. Some example sentences have more than one adjective. 

• The tempting cookie platter made my mouth salivate. (tempting)
• The fascinating book was a thrilling read.  (fascinating, thrilling)
• The interesting story made a compelling point. (interesting, compelling)
• Sally was bored by the conversation. (bored)
• I am tired today, and my work is really tiring. (tired, tiring)
• My frustrating experience at the restaurant made me angry. (frustrating)
• I have been agitated long enough.  (agitated).

These adjectives form a very large portion of all of the adjectives in the English language and help us be more accurate in our description of people, places, things, and experiences when we speak and write. 

Examples of Adjectives Which Come From a Verb

You might be wondering, what is the origin of all of these adjectives? Why do we have so many of these strange words that look like certain verb forms? Some of the participial adjectives that end in –ed have a corresponding verb form, whereas some participial adjectives do not. 

In other words, some adjectives only look like they come from verbs – and we still call them participial adjectives. In this way, “excite” becomes “excited” and “determine” becomes “determined”. However, there is no “to talent” that forms the participial adjective “talented.” It is more common that the participial adjectives that end in –ing have a corresponding verb form. These include annoying, exasperating, worrying, thrilling, misleading, gratifying, and time-consuming. 

Modifying Participial Adjectives

These adjectives do not just come in one form. You can modify participial adjectives to increase or decrease their intensity and use them to compare different nouns. This can be accomplished by using the words very, extremely, less, or by forming comparative and superlative forms. Look at the examples below, using the adjective “annoying:”

• Annoying
• Very annoying
• Extremely annoying
• Less annoying
• More annoying
• Most annoying

In all of these forms, annoying serves as the participial adjective but it is treated differently in each case. Look at a few ways we can use the above treatments of “annoying:” 

• She was so annoying.
• He is extremely annoying.
• It was more annoying to me that he did not show up for the party.
• The most annoying thing was that she did not speak up.