Grammar – What is a ‘Passive Participle’?

grammar

This post is derived from my another post (Could some help analyze the structure of this sentence "Sleet is *rain and snow mixed together*"?), where a nice guy @James answers

That noun phrase has a participle "mixed", which functions passively: the object of "mixed" is "rain and snow" (in passive participle phrases the grammatical subject is the logical object).

where the term passive participle is used, and I don't have a clear understanding about the concept.

Another ELL post (Formation of passive participle clause) considers the following sentence as an example of passive participle clause

After being arrested, he was taken to the police station.

according which, 'being+p.p' is the passive participle clause.

However, another post gives this explanation

John was eaten by lions. (here, eaten is a passive participle)

Which is simply a passive voice sentence.

So, what is "passive participle"? Is it a canonical term in English grammar?

Best Answer

From Wikipedia

Participles may also be identified with a particular voice: active or passive. Some languages (such as Latin and Russian) have distinct participles for active and passive uses. In English, the present participle is essentially an active participle, while the past participle has both active and passive uses.

The following examples illustrate this:

  1. I saw John eating his dinner. (Here eating is an active present participle).
  2. The bus has gone. (Here gone is an active past participle).
  3. The window was broken with a rock. (Here broken is a passive past participle)
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