Please take a look at my ED ending_handout. I originally designed this for a one-on-one session, but I modified the teaching suggestions on the first page for classroom teachers. Note that I am including audio recordings in this post. You can use them in class or share the URL with your students and let them hear my models as part of their independent study.
Enjoy!
English with Jennifer 
Hello Jennifer.
I would like to share with you a grammar debate.
-ed endings means we speak about past participle of the regular verbs.
Past Participle can be used in present perfect, past perfect etc. in perfect tenses, passive voice.
The past participle can be in a verbal form and an adjectival form.
My first question:
It’s gone.
a.) It has gone. It is a verbal form.
b.) It is gone. It is an adjectival form.
What is the grammar name of the ‘b’. form?
What are the synonym expressions of the ‘b’ .
My second question:
We are gathered here today.
This sentence made a great chaos whether it is a passive voice or an adjectival form.
Our teacher who is a very good teacher once he said what I thought me also:
1.”The word ‘gathered’ isn’t used adjectivally but as a verb because the action refers to the process of these people being brought together. If you suggested that it was an adjective, you would indicate that ‘we’ (the people there) are ‘gathered’ sort of people. The present tense indicates that the people have come together now. It is possible to say: We are come together .. and clearly you wouldn’t regard ‘come’ as an adjective.”
2.It has a passive sense with the idea of: we are gathered here (by perhaps a common interest).
3. As lot of other teachers disputed his opinion he modified:
“I think the time has come to accept that ‘come’ and ‘go’ and in fact ‘gather’ where this all started off, are used in a style acceptable in the 17th century and now regarded as archaic.”
“This whole discussion started with the expression – ‘We are gathered …..’ This is taken from the text of the Anglican book of prayer that dates back to the 17th century”
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I looked it up and gathered (adj) could be found in three expressions:
a.) gathered skirt
b.) gathered finger
c.)be gathered to his fathers ( adjectival (?)-I don’t know)
My third question:
If we give as an example ‘gathered’ .Gathered as an adjectival part of speech what kind of situation we can use it? And if it is an adjective which nouns could come after it.
Summing up:
My last question:
Can every past participle be used as an adjective or only ones which has an accepted custom in the English language?
Many thanks.
Best regards:
Kati Svaby
Hi Kati,
Thank you for your patience. There’s much to discuss about participles and their uses! Yes, there is overlap between verbs and adjectives. GONE is an example.
1. She has gone away, and I don’t know when she’ll return. = GONE in the present perfect (VERB)
2. Where’s my necklace? It’s gone! = GONE in a passive construction. I see this more as a predicative adjective. I think there are different labels we can use, though: stative passive (passive without a by-phrase), non-progressive passive (no action being done or received). Other examples: He’s married. It’s broken. I’m tired.
In these examples, you see that the past participle isn’t just passive OR an adjective. It’s BOTH. Past participles can be used as adjectives in a passive sense. They contrast with the present participles (following, thrilling, amazing).
As for GATHERED, consider these examples:
3. The skirt was cleverly gathered on the side to form a small blossom. = Someone gathered the material together to form that blossom.
4. We are gathered here today. = Something brought us together.
Although we can rewrite both ideas in an active sentence, I still think of word GATHERED as a description of a state or condition. I think we could argue that the past participle here is being used in the stative passive. In #4, the emphasis is not on receiving action. The sentence is about our state. It has the meaning: “We are together here today.” Remember that verbal adjectives/ participial adjectives can be used as attributive adjectives (gathered skirt) or predicative adjectives (#3). Other examples: a married woman/ She’s married.
I think you’d find it useful to look at grammar explanations based on corpus findings. I like to consult the Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English (Biber et al., 2007) The LGSWE has a whole section called “Bordeline cases of lexical word class membership.” (2.3.6)
Biber et al confirm that there are more attributive uses of participial adjectives than predicative ones, and it can hard to tell the difference between a main verb and a participial adjective used with the linking verb BE. (p.530)
Hi Jennifer,
Many thanks for your answer. I begin to understand the whole. My question would be what is the difference if I say ‘I is gone ‘ and ‘It has gone.’
Could you tell me synonyms for the each for the other.
I saw a video.
From this video I thought it’s gone means it vanished.
One of my teacher told me:
“It’s GONE
This would usually be understood as meaning “It has gone”.
II answered him:
It’s GONE
This would usually be understood as meaning “It has gone”.”
He answered:
“I watched a part of the video and heard that he said “it’s gone”, that’s all. “It’s GONE redefining vanish” doesn’t make sense to me.”
My last answer was:
“Hello Dozy,
Okay. I don’t want to dispute about this. You think that the magician said a present perfect I am convinced that he said and the people also said ‘the coin is gone’, or ‘it was gone’ and I think ( I am sorry) that it is an adjectival sentence ( where ‘gone’ isn’t a past part. but an adjective I am convinced that it means ‘it vanished’ -figuratively: it is “dead” than the film explain this expression.)
It seems to me we are both very stubborn.
So I say again PEACE and it is only matter of time.
Once we’ll speak about this again when we settled this in ourselves.
Best wishes:
Kati
_________________
Hello Jennifer,
As I saw some video with magicians who vanished a card etc. do you think I am right when I think ‘It is gone’ means it vanished.
I remember a novel that we had read when I used to be young.
Gone with the wind.
Many thanks for your answer.
Regards.
Kati svaby
Hi again Kati,
Well, I agree that IT’S GONE (= it is gone) in the context of the magic trick refers to the state/ condition of the coin, so GONE is a past participle being used to describe. That means it’s functioning as a participial adjective. It’s the same as saying something is broken. The meaning is passive, but the emphasis isn’t on receiving an action. It’s non-progressive/ stative passive, and the focus is on a state/ condition. Perhaps other teachers can chime in here. I see some overlap between verbs and adjectives, but semantics usually help us decide. GONE is not refering to an action, but rather a state in this example. For me, that’s the bottom line.
More examples to consider:
1. The plane has already taken off. = TAKEN (part of present perfect, action)
2. The plane has just landed. = LANDED (part of present perfect, action)
3. Oh no! The plane isn’t at the gate anymore. It’s gone. Did I miss my flight? = GONE (participial adjective, part of predicate, refers back to “it” – the plane, describes state)
4. Where’s Martha? – She’s gone to her parents’ home for the weekend. She’ll return on Monday. = GONE (part of present perfect, “has gone to (where)” = she went (where) Note: I think in American English, it would be more natural to say, “She went to her parents’ for the weekend.” OR “She went to visit/ stay with her parents for the weekend.”
Hope this helps!
Hello Jennifer,
Many thanks for your answer. There are still lot of things what I don’t know in the English Grammar. I have to say that the grammar is always was exciting for me. So I rather know the grammar of my mother tongue and the French grammar. I think you won’t wonder when I say that I know the grammar of my mother tongue, because you know better than me that who can speak without mistakes it isn’t certain that he/she knows the rules of grammar.
So it is easy to remain without help when you can’t explain what you think.
Many thanks that you explained me what I wanted to explain but nobody wanted to understand me.
It was a ‘déjà vu’ story in my life. I used to go to high school when our form-master – who was a teacher of Hungarian,- he wanted that one of my classmates – who was the best at math – coached his pupils. I was also good at math but she was the best. And there was a math-problem and she said a solution. And I said that it isn’t good. Nobody believed me. But I was sure of my solution. As I was persistent my poor form-master called the math teacher to do justice. At that time I felt this feeling then I read your solution:” so GONE is a past participle being used to describe.”
Again many thanks, and I won’t disturb you. I had to learn lot, and watch your videos.
Best regards:
Kati Svaby
Hi, Jennifer. This is such a great handout! Thanks for sharing. =)
My pleasure. Happy teaching! 🙂
Reblogged this on More than Teaching.
Thank you.