====== Participle constructions instead of relative clauses  ======

===== What are participles and how can they be used? =====

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There are two different participle forms in English. Here’s how they are formed: 


  - the **present participle**: it is formed by adding “-ing” to the end of the verb (e.g. talking, listening, writing)
  - the **past participle**: it is formed by adding “-ed” to the end of the verb, it is the “3rd verb form” of any verb (e.g. talked, listened, written)

==== How are they used? ====


Both participles are part of various [verschieden] other grammar constructions, e.g. 
  - the **present participle** 
    - is part of the progressive form (I am **walking**)
    - can be used to make an (active) adjective from a verb (the **winning** team)
    - can be used as a gerund (**Walking** is good for you)
  - the **past participle**
    - is part of the perfect verb forms – present perfect and past perfect (I have **walked**, I had **walked**)
    - can be used to make a (passive) adjective from a verb (the **defeated** team)

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On this page, you can learn another common [verbreitet] use of participles: They can be used to replace [ersetzen] relative clauses. 


===== Participles to replace relative clauses =====

Speakers of English often use participle constructions instead of relative clauses. Compare the following constructions. Both of them have the same meaning. 

|<100% 5% 46% >|
^#^relative clause construction^participle construction^
^1|One morning I saw a man **who walked** along the river. |One morning I saw a man **walking** along the river. |
^2|The person **who was walking** next to me looked really tired.|The pupil **walking** next to me looked really tired.|
^3|We visited the city **which was mentioned** in our travel guide. |We visited the city **mentioned** in our travel guide. |

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  * As you can see, the participle construction on the right replaces [ersetzen] the relative clause construction on the left. The meaning of both constructions is the same. Participle constructions are especially common in written English. They sound more formal [förmlich] than relative clauses.  
  * The **present participle** has an **active** meaning (walking) and the **past participle** has a **passive** meaning (mentioned).

  * The **present participle** can replace a simple form or a progressive form (see examples 1 + 2).
  * In German, you usually translate a participle construction with a relative clause because the German language doesn’t have such a construction.
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===== Practice =====

  * [[https://www.ego4u.de/de/cram-up/grammar/participles/exercises?06|Relativsatz durch Partizipialkonstruktion ersetzen]] 

{{tag>grammar englisch}}