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110
in the noun or pronoun modified by participle II, in the first (nominal) element of a predicative construction.
The passive meaning of participle II may be of three types:
1) denoting an action directed towards the person or non-person expressed by the subject or object. This is
peculiar to durative (non-terminative) transitive verbs, such as to accompany, to follow, to watch, to carry, to
teach, to listen (to), to laugh (at), to look (at, for, on), to speak (of, to), to love, to hate, as in:
Spanish is one of the foreign languages taught at our Institute.
I won’t have my friend laughed at.
2) denoting a state, which is the result of an action. This is typical of terminative transitive verbs, such as to
bring, to catch, to do, to find, to make, to put, to solve, to build, to realise, to open, to close, etc.
The problem is solved. The door is shut.
Occasionally, in a certain context, participle II of the above-mentioned verbs may denote action, as in:
Brightman’s place was an old English farm-house, built two years before.
3) denoting a pure state. This is the case with verbs denoting psycological states and emotions, such as to
amuse, to annoy, to offend, to surprise, to please, to excite.
I felt annoyed when he refused to help me.
I’m very (much) pleased with what he has done.
Participle II of intransitive verbs is always active in meaning. The use of these participles is
restricted. Only participles II of verbs denoting motion or change of state can be used as attributes. These are
participles II of the verbs to arrive, to fall, to go, to rise, to depart, to decease, to retire, to fade, to wither, to
vanish, to decay and some others. Participles II of these verbs correspond to the Russian active participle of the
perfective aspect: arrived - прибывший, vanished - исчезнувший, faded - увядший, decayed - сгнивший, as
in arrived guests, the risen moon, the vanisned civilisation, the fallen leaves, the retired president.
Among these participles we find some which can be used either transitively or intransitively, such as hidden,
increased, diminished, returned. They correspond to the Russian perfective active participles with the suffix -ся
(спрятавшийся, увеличившийся, вернувшийся): the man hidden behind the tree, an increased population, a
returned traveller.
The aspectual meaning of participle II and perfect
§ 144. The original aspectual meaning of participle II is perfectivity. It is evident in terminative verbs and
verbs of double aspectual meaning.
In transitive terminative verbs the passive meaning of participle II is combined with
perfectivity. Thus participle II can be opposed to participle I in their aspectual meanings of
perfectivity/imperfectivity: taking - taken, asking - asked, writing - written, telling - told (берущий - взятый,
спрашивающий - спрошенный, etc.).
The original meaning may be modified by the context, as can be seen by comparing the following sentences:
The story told by the hostess amused everybody (история, рассказанная хозяйкой...).
Why don’t we believe
stories told by hunters and fishermen? (истории, рассказываемые охотниками, т. е. которые рассказывают
охотники)
There is a growing tendency in present-day English to use participle I passive as an attribute to emphasize
the processual character of the action. Thus we may paraphrase the last sentence, saying, “Why don't we
believe stories being told by hunters?”
Participle II of intransitive verbs or verbs used intransitively is always perfective in meaning and can be
opposed to non-perfect participle I: rising - risen, decaying - decayed, going - gone, arriving - arrived, retiring
-retired, as in: the rising moon - the risen moon, the retiring director— the retired director. The same in the
auctioneer’s formula: Going! Going! Gone! (Продается! Продается! Продано!)
The meaning of perfectivity/imperfectivity results in the potential meaning of perfect. The idea of priority