Learning English

Callum        
Hello and welcome to 6 Minute Grammar with me, Callum.

Catherine  
And me, Catherine.

Callum        
Today we’re focussing on participle clauses.

Catherine
Yes, that’s clauses that begin with present or past participles.

Callum        
We’ll find out what they are and how to use them.

Catherine
And there’ll be lots of examples and also a quiz. Before we start though Callum, are you all right?

Callum
What do you mean?

Catherine
Well you’ve got little bits of tissue stuck on your face.

Callum
Oh that, you noticed.

Catherine
Well, it’s hard to miss them really.

Callum
I cut myself shaving.

Catherine
I see, that’s convenient.

Callum
Not really, it hurt.

Catherine
But it did give you a perfect example of a present participle clause, which is today’s topic.

Callum
Yes it did! Let’s use that then as our first example. I cut myself shaving. First though, let’s remind everyone what a present participle is:

Catherine
Sure. The present participle is the -ing form of the verb. We use it to form the continuous verb forms. So if the infinitive is shave, the present participle is shaving.

Callum
The past continuous of shave is: “I was shaving.”

Catherine
And something happened while you were shaving, Callum

Callum
Yes, I cut myself.

Catherine
You did. Now we can make a number of different sentences with this information. You could say:

Callum
I was shaving and I cut myself or: While I was shaving I cut myself.

Catherine
Let’s just swap those clauses around

Callum
I cut myself while I was shaving.

Catherine
OK, now because the subject of each of those clauses is the same - you - we can make the sentence more efficient and sound more natural by not repeating the pronoun and auxiliary that goes with it.

Callum
I cut myself while shaving.

Catherine
This is fine, but we can also leave out the conjunction – while. Which leaves us with:

Callum
I cut myself shaving. 

Catherine
So we can use this structure when two things happen at the same time.
 
Callum
Yes, lets have some more examples. Catherine, what were you doing last night?

Catherine
I was sitting on the sofa. I was watching TV. So I can say: I was sitting on the sofa watching TV. Callum: What are we doing now?

Callum
We are in the studio. We are recording 6 Minute Grammar. We’re in the studio recording 6 Minute Grammar.

STING

Catherine
Today we’re talking about participle clauses.

Callum
We’ve looked at one way you can use a present participle clause; now let’s look at a past participle clause. First Catherine, let’s review what a past participle is.

Catherine
It’s the third form of the verb, so if you remember go, went, gone, or do, did, done; gone and done are the past participles. For regular verbs this is the -ed form. We use the past participle in perfect verb forms and also the passive.

Callum
So how would we use a past participle clause?

Catherine
Like present participle clauses, it’s a way of being more economical with language and avoiding repetition. Listen to these sentences.

Neil
The dog was hit by the car. It wasn’t hurt.
The dog that was hit by the car wasn’t hurt.
The dog hit by the car wasn’t hurt.

Catherine
So we started there with two sentences. Both contained clauses that had the same subject. We have the dog in the first sentence, and in the second it’s referred to with the pronoun it.

Neil
The dog was hit by a car. It wasn’t hurt.

Catherine
We can the combine these into one sentence by using a relative clause.

Neil
The dog that was hit by the car wasn’t hurt.

Catherine
And we can further shorten this by leaving out the relative pronoun and the auxiliary that goes with it. This leaves us with:

Neil
The dog hit by the car wasn’t hurt.

Callum
So effectively what we do is combine all the bits that identify the subject into one phrase.

Catherine
Yes, it’s like a reduced relative clause that becomes the subject of the sentence. You can see this form quite regularly in warning notices in public places.

Neil
Cars parked here will be clamped.
Bicycles chained to this fence will be removed.

Catherine
Cars parked here is a shortened version of: Cars which are parked here…

Callum
And bicycles chained here is a shortened version of: Bicycles which are chained here.

Catherine
That’s right.

STING

Callum
And now: quiz time. Join the two sentences together into one. Here’s number one:

Catherine
I saw the cat. It was playing with a mouse.
I saw the cat. It was playing with a mouse.

Callum
And the answer is: I saw the cat playing with a mouse. Number two:

Catherine
The gold was stolen from the bank. It was never found.
The gold was stolen from the bank. It was never found.

Callum
The answer is: The gold stolen from the bank was never found. And finally number three.

Catherine
She made a lot of money. She was running her own company.
She made a lot of money. She was running her own company.

Callum
And the answer is: She made a lot of money running her own company. Well done if you got them all right.

Catherine
And that’s all from us for this programme. There’s more about this topic on our website.

Callum
Do join us again for more 6 Minute Grammar.

Both
Bye