It's me again, I've another question about Participle (Passive Participle).

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PrTv

#313434 Wed, 10 Jan 07 01:41 PM

Hello again.

I have a question about the use of Participle in passive form.

I did the search and came up with this 2 years old thread:
http://www.englishforums.com/English/HowToUsePartParticiple/bpzwq/Post.htm

I read it but I can't find the answer, so I have to ask.

Before I get to my question, let me tell you that I've already known the function of preposition, both past and present participle, so I don't have much problem using it. But the thing that I'm not quite sure is Passive Participle (being + Past participle).

When should we use this form ?

I know that Participle can be use as an adjective and my question is related to the adjectival use of participle.
Using participle as an adjective, there are rules that if the subject or object that we intend to modify can perform the action itself, we use present participle (+ing), but if it cannot perform the action, we use past participle.

About passive participle, I only see its use in Passive Continuous sentences (like: My car has been being fixed).

But in daily life, I saw many adjectival uses of it.
In the sentence like:
Police say the officers were responding to a report of other officers being attacked when they came under fire.
(It was taken from CNN's website: http://www.cnn.com/2007/LAW/01/04/katrina.shooting.ap/index.html )

Since the officers were attacked by someone, according to the grammatical rules said above, why didn't they just use "other officers attacked when they came under fire" ?

I guess the reason is that these two words (attacked and being attacked) have the different meaning.
Could anyone please tell me the difference in these two words so that I can use them correctly ?

Thanks

PrTv

Joined on Tue, Jan 9 2007

New Member (07)

Prepositions

Marius Hancu

#313436 Wed, 10 Jan 07 01:55 PM

officers being attacked, officers were attacked: they are attacked by others

officers attacked: it's a bit confusing, but mostly it's the very same officers who performed the attack

other officers attacked when they came under fire
wouldn't have been right, as this means that the attack was performed by those other officers, while in the original sentence:

a report of other officers being attacked when they came under fire
the attack is performed by other people

Marius Hancu

Joined on Wed, Apr 26 2006

Montreal, Canada

Veteran Member (11,673)

Inchoateknowledge

#313452 Wed, 10 Jan 07 02:17 PM

My take:

Police say the officers were responding to a report of other officers being attacked when they came under fire.

IMO, the omission of being alters the semantics of the verb phrase.

There is aspectual diff. between the sentence with and without being.

(~~who are~~ --Whizz deletion) being attacked has dynamic senses and connotes the notion of incompleteness and temporariness.

attacked, on the other hand has stative sense and expresses completeness.

Inchoateknowledge

Joined on Wed, May 3 2006

Senior Member (2,536)

Beep! Beep! :)

Verbs

Dawnstorm

#313482 Wed, 10 Jan 07 03:43 PM

"a report of other officers being attacked"

"attacked" is the past participle, but it's not used as an adjective, here; it's used as part of a verb in the passive voice.

"a report of other officers being attacked" is short for "a report of other officers who were being attacked (at the time they received the report"

Had they received the report after the officers had been attacked, you'd have read: "a report of other officers having been attacked"

"a report of other officers attacked" is unusual; you'd probably get an adjectival use instead: "a report of other attacked officers".

It's not always easy to tell a verb in the passive voice from an adjective:

They are married by a priest. - passive voice
They are a married couple. - adjective
They are married. - ??? (context)

Dawnstorm

Joined on Fri, Dec 15 2006

New Member (42)

Verbs

PrTv

#313768 Thu, 11 Jan 07 04:57 AM

I'll add some example of Past Participle's use.

I found this in the USA's constitution.

Judgement in cases of Impeachment shall not extend further then to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United State: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indicment, Trial, Judgement and Punishment, according to Law.

Well, since the party in this example cannot convict itself, it has to be convicted by someone. I think that this sentence has a passive meaning and convicted is past participle.

According to your recommendation above, can I rewrite the sentence like this ?
: but the Party being convicted shall nevertheless... (passive participle form)
: but the Party who is convicted shall nevertheless... (relative clause form)

These 3 forms all have a passive meaning (+ed, +being and ed, and +be and +ed); I think all of those are grammatical correct, but you told me in the above posts that using past participle (+ed), in some instance, can introduce a confused meaning especially when past participle form and past simple form of that verb have the same appearance like put, cut, and convict.

This way readers may be confused: they may not be sure if the subject/object perform that action itself (in the past) or the action is performed by someone, since past participle and past simple form have the same look.
In this case, if being is added, it'll help clarify the meaning because it'll tell the readers that this sentence is passive form.

Is my understanding right ?

And could anyone please tell me why they use "but the Party convicted shall nevertheless" (instead of passive participle and relative clause) in the constitution shown (or being shown... I start to get confused, you know) above ?
Is there any good reason for using it that way ?

If my statements above have anything wrong, your correction is really appreciated.

PrTv

Verbs, Clauses, Past simple

Dawnstorm

#313879 Thu, 11 Jan 07 12:23 PM

I'm not 100 % sure that that's always the case, but in the above sentence about the officers being attacked, the "being" expresses the continuous aspect.

"officers being attacked" = "officers who are/were being attacked" (continuous aspect)
"the Party convicted" = "the party who is/was/will be convicted" (simple aspect)

So, while the participles aren't subject to tense, they're still subject to aspect: continuous: "being attacked", or perfect: "having been attacked".

I don't think "being" is added for clarity, really. "a report of officers attacked" isn't really ambiguous (as, if it was the officers who attacked, it would be: "a report of officers attacking", or "a report of officers who attack(ed)". And I doubt anyone would construe "a report of officers" as the subject; a report can't attack.)

Summary:

1. The party who is/was convicted
1.1. The party convicted (past participle as passive voice with ellipsis of "who is/was")
1.2. The convicted party (past participle as adjective)

2. The party who is/was being convicted
2.1. The party being convicted
2.2. no adjectival use

3. The party who had/has been convicted
3.1. The party having been convicted
3.2. no adjectival use

Dawnstorm

Tenses

PrTv

#314055 Thu, 11 Jan 07 06:16 PM

Thankyou very much for your replies. I think I got it.

PrTv