Participle adjective

Question

I would like to ask some question about participle adjective .I have read a grammar book,the said about the paticiple adjective .Some come befor noun and some come after noun.How do we know that? I have the examples from this book.

1.A cheer went up from the crowds watching .
2.we have to pat for the room used.
3.None of the candidate applying was accepted.

Are they correct? why do we use 'watching crowds", "used room" or appying candidate?

YoungCalifornian · Accepted Answer

Firstly, it should be pointed out that the correct term is adjective participle, not "participle adjective". Secondly, putting aside the issue of adjective participles, the examples you have given contain some basic grammar mistakes. They should be written as follows:

1. A cheer went up from the crowds watching.
2. We have to pat for the room used.
3. None of the candidates applying were accepted.

I should note that I don't know what is meant by having to "pat for" a room. That doesn't make sense to me, but indeed all the adjective participles are used correctly. One almost always has the option of placing the adjective participle before or after the noun and having either be correct. However, in many cases one will sound more typical of a native speaker. There are too many possibilities to list, it's just something that has to be gleaned from exposure to the language. In all three of these examples one could place the adjectival participle before the noun and it would still read fine.

Mr Wordy · Answer

YoungCalifornianI should note that I don't know what is meant by having to "pat for" a room.

Presumably it should be "pay"?

Dimsumexpress · Answer

Anonymous1.A cheer went up from the crowds watching .
2.we have to pat for the room used.
3.None of the candidate applying was accepted.

This is my two cents:
1) If "Watching" is used as a particple adjective,it would syntactically sound and better describe the scene by putting "watching" in front of "crowd"; i.e. "A cheer went up from the spectating / watching crowds. The way it was written, the crowd seems to be modifying "watching".
3) None = zero which is less than one. So if the subject / verb agreement is applied, then "singular" would be the proper form, meaning "was".
Secondly, there seems to be a non-uniform standard, or confused preception as to when a past particple is an "verb adjective", and when it's used to build a passive sentence. In # 3, I believe
"accepted" is a used passively as a verb, and not an adjective as perceived.

None of the candidates accepted was from UCLA. This would be a particple adjective.

BillJ · Answer

YoungCalifornian
Firstly, it should be pointed out that the correct term is adjective participle, not "participle adjective". Secondly, putting aside the issue of adjective participles, the examples you have given contain some basic grammar mistakes. They should be written as follows:

1. A cheer went up from the crowds watching.

2. We have to pat for the room used.

3. None of the candidates applying were accepted.

I should note that I don't know what is meant by having to "pat for" a room. That doesn't make sense to me, but indeed all the adjective participles are used correctly. One almost always has the option of placing the adjective participle before or after the noun and having either be correct. However, in many cases one will sound more typical of a native speaker. There are too many possibilities to list, it's just something that has to be gleaned from exposure to the language. In all three of these examples one could place the adjectival participle before the noun and it would still read fine.

But you're missing the point here about participles.

'Watching', 'used' and 'accepted' are verbs here, not adjectives. Participles used as adjectives are called participial adjectives; they have an adjectival function, not a verbal one. But none of the examples submitted actually includes a participial adjective. Just because a word is participial in form says nothing about what its syntactic function is.

1. A cheer went up from the crowds watching.

Watching is a verb here, used in a reduced relative clause i.e. 'the crowds [who were watching]'. It can't be an adjective here because you can't modify it with an adverb of degree like 'very': * 'the very watching crowds'.

2. We have to pay for the room used.

Similarly, used is a verb here, set in a reduced relative clause i.e. 'the room [that/which was used]', but this time it's in the passive voice with the by-agent omitted: 'the room [that was used (by us/family or whomever)]'. Passives are formed by using a form of the verb 'be' followed by a past participle that functions as the main verb.

3. None of the candidates applying was accepted.

Accepted is a verb here, once again used in the passive voice with the by-agent omitted: 'none of the candidates applying was accepted' (by the panel/directors or whomever).

BillJ

Participle adjective

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