Participles used as modifiers in noun phrases

Question

Hi:

We know that the participles - present participles and past participles - of some English verbs can function as pre-modifiers or/and post - modifiers as well. I'd like to ask you if there are any rules to follow regarding when to use participles as adjectives in a Noun Phrase. Is there any rule or do we just have to memorize verbs whose participles can be used as modifiers?

Here are some examples of Noun Phrases in which participles are functioning as Noun modifiers

- the singing baby

- the laughing buddha

- the person concerned

- their boring teacher

- an annoyed person

- a place occupied with books

BillJ · Accepted Answer

Be careful: they are not all adjectives.

For example, "singing" and "laughing" are attributive modifiers, but they are verbs, not adjectives.

AlpheccaStars · Answer

Laborious Is there any rule or do we just have to memorize verbs whose participles can be used as modifiers?

You just need to use some common sense and follow patterns that you already know:

The laughing buddha

The wailing woman
The screaming baby
The sobbing girlfriend
The howling wolves
The hooting owl
The mooing cow
The mewing kitten
The hopping rabbit
The running water
The soaring eagle

Beware of the differences

1) present versus past participle:
an annoyed woman (She is annoyed.)
a bored teacher (He is bored with the some old lessons over and over.)

an annoying woman (She annoys other people.)
a boring teacher (He bores the students.

2) pre-modifiers versus post modifiers. There aren't many of these.
the person concerned (They are the one mentioned previously)
the concerned person (A person who is worried)

CalifJim · Answer

Laborious I'd like to ask you if there are any rules to follow regarding when to use participles as adjectives in a Noun Phrase.
Is there any rule or do we just have to memorize verbs whose participles can be used as modifiers?

I can't imagine that as a learner of English you have to do anything different when learning one adjective or another no matter whether it is derived from a verb or not. You have to memorize all kinds of vocabulary — nouns, verbs, etc. — so of course you end up memorizing those adjectives that are derived from other parts of speech as part of the natural course of events in learning a language. I don't think this amounts to memorizing which verbs have participles that can be used as modifiers. I've never heard of anyone who used that method in learning a language. I don't think there is any such list. You'd have to start from scratch to make your own list, and it would include thousands of verbs. In my opinion that would be a waste of time.

CJ

Participles used as modifiers in noun phrases

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