English III
Participles
 Participles are verb forms used to modify nouns.
 Ex: The swinging sign creaked in the wind.
 Ex: The unexpected guest made a speech.
 Present participles ALWAYS end in –ing. They are the
form used with is, am, and are in verb phrases.
 Ex: is looking, am running, are reading
 Past participles usually end in –ed or –d. They are the
form used with have, has, and had in verb phrases.
 Ex: have looked, has stopped, had hopped
 A few past participles are irregularly formed (torn,
sold, burnt, read, etc._
 Ex: have flown, had slept, has fought
Participial Phrases
 Participial phrases are made up of participles and
accompanying modifiers.
 Ex: The jogger running in the puddle is going to be
very wet and cold.
 Just like in the previous example of simple participles,
participial phrases can be made up of present or past
participles and accompanying modifiers.
 Ex: The police scattered the protesters loitering
outside the museum.
 Ex: The Great Smoky Mountains National Park
contains rolling hills blanketed by bluish haze.
 Simple participles usually appear immediately before
the noun/pronoun modified. Participial phrases
follow the noun/pronoun modified.
Participial Phrase Fragments
 Participial phrase fragments occur when a complete
thought is not expressed.
 Ex: Freddy stayed up late. Working on an overdue
assignment.
Practice
 Finish each incomplete sentence by joining it with the
complete sentence next to it.
 1. Waiting for your turn to see the doctor. You can get
nervous.
 2. My visits to the doctor always start out the same way.
Getting my blood pressure checked by the nurse.
 3. Her clothes being so out of style. She decided to buy
new ones.
Relative Pronouns
 A relative pronoun is a pronoun that marks a relative
clause with a larger sentence.
 A relative pronoun provides more information about
the antecedent.
Who, whose, whom
 We can use who (never after a preposition), whose,
and whom (after a preposition) for people as a
relative pronoun.
 Ex: John, who is 21 today, is happy.
 Ex: Susan, whom you know, will try to buy their car.
 Ex: The man to whom you were writing is the Dean of
our school.
Whose
 Can be used with or without a preposition
 Can replace a human being or a thing
 Is always followed by a noun without an article.
 Ex: John, whose father is a physician, will be here soon.
 Ex: John, with whose children you play tennis, is a Medical
Doctor.
 Ex: The book, whose author died yesterday, is a
masterpiece.
 Ex: The drug, whose discovery was expected, will cure
thousands.
Which
 Subject
 Ex: The drug, which was to prove effective, helped to
wipe out the disease.
 Object
 Ex: The experiment, which he thought was absolutely
essential, did not teach us anything.
That
 That is both a subject and an object.
 That can replace who, whom, and which.
 That has to be used after a superlative.
 That has to be used after the first, the last, the only, it
is …, very (adverb), all
 When that is an object, it can be omitted.
 The relative that must not be used after a comma (,) or
a preposition
Examples
 It is the best example that I can find.
 The first scientist that carried out the experiment
successfully won a Nobel Prize.
 The last thing that you should do is stop trying.
 The only time that the computer crashed I lost all the
data that I had stored.
 You gave me the very thing that I wanted.
That vs. Who
 The computer scientist,
 The computer scientists
who were asked to
design a faster program,
were interviewed by the
boss.
that were asked to
design a faster program
were interviewed by the
boss.
 (all the computer
scientists were
interviewed by the boss)
 (i.e., only those that were
asked to work, not the
others)
Omitting That
 The computer that he bought is a very old used
computer.
 The computer he bought is very old.
What vs. Which
 What I like in this place is to be served by nice
waitresses!
 The waitress is pretty here, which is an added
attraction!
 What I like about this house is it size.
 This house is huge, which is convenient.
Combining Sentences
 When combining to sentences with the same subject,
omit the subject and use a relative pronoun.
 Ex: I like oranges. Oranges are delicious.
 I like oranges which are delicious.