eek Grammars_.
OBS. 6.--Horne Tooke supposes our participles in _ed_ to express time past,
and those in _ing_ to have no signification of time. He says, "I did not
mean to deny the adsignification of time to _all_ the participles; though I
continue to withhold it from that which is called the _participle
present_."--_Diversions of Purley_, Vol. ii, p. 415. Upon the same point,
he afterwards adds, "I am neither new nor singular; for Sanctius both
asserted and proved it by numerous instances in the Latin. Such as, 'Et
_abfui proficiscens_ in Graeciam.' _Cicero_. 'Sed postquam amans _accessit_
pretium _pollicens_.' _Terent_. 'Ultro ad cam _venies indicans_ te amare.'
_Terent_. 'Turnum _fugientem_ haec terra videbit.' _Virg_."--_Tooke's Div._,
ii, 420. Again: "And thus I have given you my opinion concerning what is
called the _present participle_. Which I think improperly so called;
because I take it to be merely the simple verb _adjectived_, without any
adsignification of _manner_ or _time_."--_Tooke's Div._, Vol. ii, p. 423.
OBS. 7.--I do not agree with this author, either in limiting participles in
_ed_ to time past, or in denying all signification of time to those in
_ing_; but I admit that what is commonly called the _present participle_,
is not very properly so denominated, either in English or in Latin, or
perhaps in any language. With us, however, this participle is certainly, in
very many instances, something else than "merely the simple verb
_adjectived_." For, in the first place, it is often of a complex character,
as _being loved, being seen_, in which two verbs are "_adjectived_"
together, and that by different terminations. Yet do these words as
perfectly coalesce in respect to time, as to everything else; and _being
loved_ or _being seen_ is confessedly as much a "_present_" participle, as
_being_, or _loving_, or _seeing_--neither form being solely confined to
what now is. Again, our participle in _ing_ stands not only for the present
participle of the Latin or Greek grammarians, but also for the Latin
gerund, and often for the Greek infinitive used substantively; so that by
this ending, the English verb is not only _adjectived_, but also
_substantived_, if one may so speak. For the participle when governed by a
preposition, partakes not of the qualities "of a verb and an _adjective_,"
but rather of those of a verb and a _noun_.
CLASSES.
English verbs, not defective, have severally three participle
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