Participles are verbal adjectives.
In other words, they have characteristics of both verbs and adjectives.
Like verbs, participles express an action or state, and have gender, number, voice, and aspect.
Like adjectives, participles can qualify nouns or pronouns, and have gender, number, and case.
Participles can also be used as adverbs.
Kinds of Participles
Hindi has several kinds of participles:
- Imperfective Participles
- Perfect Participles
- Perfect Passive Participles
- Habitual Participles
- Passive Habitual Participles
- Future Participles
- Continuous Participles with रहा
- Conjunctive Participles
Hindi participles have three kinds of verbal aspect: imperfective, perfect, and habitual.
Hindi participles can be in the active or passive voice.
Imperfective Participles
Imperfective participles have the “imperfective aspect”. Imperfective participles express actions that are viewed as “imperfect” (not complete) and are not viewed as a whole.
Refer to the following section for more information: Imperfective Participles
Perfect Participles
Perfect participles express an action as a whole, or as a resultant state, etc., which is essentially “perfect” (complete or whole).
Refer to the following article for more information: Perfect Participles
Perfect Passive Participles
Passive participles are formed in a manner similar to passive verbs:
[perfect participle of main verb] [perfect participle of जाना]
See the article about passive participles for more information.
Habitual Participles
Habitual participles are formed with an oblique infinitive and वाला:
[masculine singular oblique infinitive of main verb] [form of वाला]
See the article about habitual participles for more information.
Passive Habitual Participles
Passive habitual participles are formed as follows:
[perfect participle of the main verb] [infinitive form of जाना] [form of वाला]
See the article about habitual participles for more information.
Future Participles
Future participles have the same form as habitual participles – an oblique infinitive plus the वाला suffix. Context distinguishes the meaning, however. Future participles refer to future actions, usually to imminent actions.
For instance: दिल्ली जानेवाले लोग – “the people who are about to go to Delhi”
Refer to the following article for more information: Future Participles
Continuous Participles with रहा
The verbal auxiliary रहा, which is used to form the present continuous forms of verbs, can be used without any form of होना as a kind of participial phrase.
For instance: साइकिल पर चल रही लड़की – “the girl riding on the bike”.
This participle is considered less proper than imperfective participles, however.
See the following article for more information: Verb Stem + रहा
Conjunctive Participles
Conjunctive participles are often used instead of conjunctions – they express the first of two related sequential actions. The conjunctive participle may be used to express the first action, and a verb may be used to express then second action. Conjunctive participles also have other uses.
Refer to the following article for more information: Conjunctive Participles
The Differences Between The Various Kinds of Hindi Participles
Hindi has three kinds of related participles: perfect participles, passive perfect participles, and passive habitual participles.
The difference between perfect participles and passive perfect participles is that passive perfect participles explicitly or implicitly mention agency, whereas perfect participles do not.
The difference between these participles and passive habitual participles is that passive habitual participles imply a generic or repeated action. The difference can be understood by converting the participial phrase into a verb phrase.
Participles of होना, बनना, रहना
The verbs होना, बनना, and रहना can form participles. This use is not paralleled in English.
Participle Modifiers
Participles can be modified with certain other words to change their meaning.
न
The negative particle न negates the participle.
सकना
सकना can be used with a participle to express ability, like the English suffix -able, -ible, etc.
पहुंचाना
The verb पहुंचाना can be used with certain nouns to form special participles.