Participles And Participle Phrases

Participial phrases in the past tense begin with words that end in "-ed". This is because the "-ed" ending indicates the past participle form of a verb. A past participle is used to form the past tense or the passive voice in English. For example, in the sentence "He walked to the store," the word "walked" is the past participle of the verb "walk". Participial phrases in the past tense function as adjectives and provide additional information about a noun or pronoun in a sentence.

Participial phrases in the present tense begin with words that end in "-ing". This is because the present participle form of a verb is formed by adding "-ing" to the base form of the verb. Participial phrases are used to provide additional information about the subject of a sentence and are often used to modify nouns. For example, in the sentence "The running water sounded soothing," the participial phrase "running water" modifies the noun "water" and describes the type of water. Therefore, the correct answer is "-ing".

"Running through the water" is a phrase that is separated from the rest of the sentence with a comma. If it is describing a noun before or, in this case, after it, then it is a participial phrase.

The participial phrase "suffering great tragedy in his life" is in the present tense because it describes an ongoing action or state that is happening at the same time as the main verb "wrote." The present tense indicates that the suffering and writing are happening simultaneously.

The word "digging" appears between the determiner "a" and the noun it modifies "tool." What kind of tool is it? It is functioning as a participle.

The word "running" appears between the determiner "the" and the noun "water." This is a strong clue that it is functioning as a participle, but more questions need to be asked. What kind of water is it? The word "running" tells the reader what kind of "water" is being described.

It modifies the noun.

The participial phrase in the sentence is "suffering great tragedy in his life." It functions as an adjective and provides additional information about Poe. It describes the state or condition he was in while writing disturbing stories.

Remember: Determine if a verb in the sentence is a helping verb. Because "is" is a helping verb, then it is part of the verb phrase with "spinning."

The participial phrase "suffering great tragedy in his life" provides additional information about Poe, indicating that he experienced significant hardships. Therefore, the participial phrase modifies the word "Poe."