Somersault sentence example

Participial phrases are an interesting bunch. They're groups of words that act as adjectives. That is, they provide further information about the noun or nouns in a sentence.

These phrases contain past or present participles. If they contain past participles, they'll likely end in -ed, -en, or -t. If they contain present participles, the verb will likely end in -ing.

A past participle is something like “baked,” “forgotten,” or "burnt." In a sentence, a past participle would read, “I have baked chocolate chip cookies all my life.” A verb ending in -ing is something like “walking,” “reading,” or “sipping.” In a sentence, a present participle would read, “I am reading a book.”

The difficulty arises when we try to pinpoint irregular past participles. These contain irregular verbs that don’t adhere to the -ed rule. Examples include “eaten” (instead of "eated") or “ran” (instead of "runned"). In a sentence, an irregular past participle would read, “I have eaten tamales all my life.”

With a firm grasp on participles, let’s take a look at an amplified version: participial phrases.