English Grammar Drills - Mark Lester 2009

Past participle
8 Basic Verb Forms
Part 2 Verb Phrases

There are two types of past participles: regular and irregular. The regular forms are exactly the same as the past tense; that is, they are the base + -(e)d. The rules for spelling and pronunciation are exactly the same as for the past tense.

Irregular past participles

In older periods of English, most irregular past participles ended in -(e)n. Today, only about one- third of irregular past participles still end in -(e)n. About the only generalization we can make now is that if an irregular verb has an -(e)n ending, then it is very likely a past participle. Here are some examples:

Base    Past participle

choose    chosen

eat    eaten

fall    fallen

fly    flown

freeze    frozen

hide     hidden

rise    risen

see    seen

speak    spoken

swear    sworn

tear    torn

wake    woken

As you can see from the examples, the changes in vowels from base form to past participle form are unpredictable.

Two common past participles have unpredictable pronunciations: been rhymes with sin in American English, but with seen in British English. Done rhymes with sun, rather than soon as might be expected.

Exercise 8.8

Complete each sentence by creating the correct irregular past participle.

She (choose) the wrong seat at the theater.

She had chosen the wrong seat at the theater.

1. We skated on the pond after it (freeze).

2. The sun (rise) before we left the house.

3. Once Senator Blather (speak), the listeners applauded him.

4. The baby (wake) by the dog’s barking.

5. The secret code (hide) by the general.