Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
In the Spanish language there are some verbs with irregular past participles. There are also verbs with both regular and irregular participles, in which the irregular form is most used as an adjective , while the regular form tends to appear after haber to form compound perfect tenses.
The participle of describir is descrito in some regions, but descripto in others. There are three verbs that have both a regular and an irregular past participle. Both forms may be used when conjugating the compound tenses and the passive voice with the auxiliary verbs haber and ser, but the irregular form is generally the only one used as an ...
The past anterior combines the preterite form of haber with the past participle of the main verb. It is very rare in spoken Spanish, but it is sometimes used in formal written language, where it is almost entirely limited to subordinate (temporal, adverbial) clauses.
When the past participle is used in this way, it invariably ends with -o. In contrast, when the participle is used as an adjective, it agrees in gender and number with the noun modified. Similarly, the participle agrees with the subject when it is used with ser to form the "true" passive voice (e.g. La carta fue escrita ayer 'The letter was ...
The preterite and past participle forms of irregular verbs follow certain patterns. These include ending in -t (e.g. build, bend, send), stem changes (whether it is a vowel, such as in sit, win or hold, or a consonant, such as in teach and seek, that changes), or adding the [n] suffix to the past participle form (e.g. drive, show, rise ...
In some verbs, the past tense, past participle, or both are identical in form to the basic (infinitive) form of the verb. This is the case with certain strong verbs, where historical sound changes have led to a leveling of the vowel modifications: for example, let has both past tense and past participle identical to the infinitive, while come ...
A form used for centuries but never accepted normatively has an -s ending in the second person singular of the preterite or simple past. For example, lo hicistes instead of the normative lo hiciste; hablastes tú for hablaste tú. That is the only instance in which the tú form does not end in an -s in the normative language.
As with present participles, past participles may function as simple adjectives: "the burnt logs"; "we were very excited". These normally represent the passive meaning of the participle, although some participles formed from intransitive verbs can be used in an active sense: "the fallen leaves"; "our fallen comrades".