Participles in Pali
Participles are words derived from the verbs and are used as adjectives.
E.g. the dancing men, a flying bird, a running car, written document, cut fruit.
All the underlined words in the above examples are participles.
The participles in Pali have similar properties and usage. i.e. they too are derived from verbs and are used as adjectives for describing nouns.
There are three types of participles in Pali.
- Present Participles,
- Past Participles, and
- Future Passive Participles
We will study all these participles in detail in our coming Units. Some important points to remember regarding the participles are
• As the participles act as adjectives to various nouns belonging to different genders, they too take up different genders. Like nouns and other adjectives, the participles decline in three genders, two numbers, and eight cases.
• The participles when acting as adjectives, match the nouns they describe in gender, number and case.
Let us now study the Present Participles.