Looking at some unusual features of past participles.

THE results of the SPM (Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia) examination were out. I got a ’phone call from my dear friend Shirley Lee. She was a little flustered over a newspaper report on the high achievers – not about the many students who got 12 A’s, the many others that got 11 A’s, and even more who got 10 A’s, in different combinations of A+, A, and A-. It was the repetitive and prosaic use of the verb got that got on poor Shirley’s nerves. Why not say, for example, bagged 6 A’s, obtained 8 A’s, scored 9 A’s, achieved 10 A’s, etc?

Let us get to the bottom of the usage of the verb whose principal parts are get/got/got~gotten. The verb has several meanings. For now I want to home in on their two common meanings, viz (1) “to possess, to own”, and (2) “to acquire, to obtain, to gain possession”. There is, however, some difference in the ways that British English (BrE) and American English (AmE) use the word.

BrE would say Peter has two books, meaning “Peter possesses two books” – but the alternative construction Peter has got two books is also acceptable (see Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 2004, page 654; and The Random House Dictionary of the English Language, 1973, page 611).

On the other hand, AmE indicates possession by using only has/have – instead of the BrE has got/have got. Thus AmE would say Paul has two bicycles rather than the BrE Paul has got two bicycles (BBC English Publication: Professor Grammar’s Rule Book, page 63).

For the past participle, BrE uses got – not gotten, a form which exists only as the adjective ill-gotten (ibid, page 615), as in ill-gotten gains or ill-gotten goods. Thus, BrE says she has got two tickets for the concert, meaning “she has obtained two tickets for the concert” – which could just as well mean “she possesses two tickets for the concert”. Come to think of it, both constructions come to the same thing: a person would have to first obtain the tickets in order to then own them.

Here, again, AmE cuts out any ambiguity by using gotten rather than the BrE got. Thus an American saying Mary has gotten tickets for the show means just that: that Mary has obtained two tickets for the show. But in another context, he would not say that Mary has gotten two hands, knowing that such statement is nonsense. But what about the construction Mary has got two hands? In BrE, the statement makes sense if got is considered tautological so that the phrase has got may be deemed the idiomatic equivalent of has, meaning “to possess”. What if an American were to parse got as a past participle? He should be puzzling over the meaning, whether Mary has acquired two hands instead of having been born with them!

‘Got’ as a verb without tense?

Let’s get more into the got/gotten mire. Consider got used on its own, in Porgy’s song, I got plenty o’ nuttin’ (in Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess). Here, got is obviously not the past tense form of the verb get meaning “to acquire, to obtain” but is the virtual present tense of the verb got, meaning “to own, to possess”. Such usage is also common in our colloquial lingo. (Depending on context, got may, of course, also be the standard past tense of the verb get, meaning “to acquire, to obtain”.)

The word got, when on its own and meaning “to possess”, is an unusual verb. It defies conjugation so that it exists in only one form. This one form suffices in many situations: (1) it can serve as the present tense (Fareha got a dog in her house) as well as the past tense (Nadzirah got a dog for three years); (2) it can be singular (Kiyaasa got a parrot in her house) as well as plural (Sajida and Izhan got a parrot in their house); and (3) it is used, unchanged, with the first, second, and third persons (I got talent; you got talent; he/she got talent).

What are we to make of got as a “tenseless” or “unconjugatable” verb, as elaborated above? I can only think of the term illiteracy, as defined by F. W. Fowler (A Dictionary of Modern English Usage. Second ed, rev Sir Ernest Gowers. 1977. Page 266) thus: “... a kind of offence against the literary idiom that is not easily named.”

There is one other notable feature: got also serves as an auxiliary verb to form the passive voice of transitive lexical verbs; e.g. Danial got beaten in the 100-metre dash. (I think that such usage is informal, got being the colloquial equivalent of the verb “to be”. )

At this juncture, I got to apologise to my fellow-learners if, in trying to clear up some grey areas in the usage of the verb get/got/got~gotten, I have created some confusion. I got carried away in the effort. Anyway, I hope that you have now got all that right.

Other past participles

Let us now get out of the got/gotten mire and explore some other past participles. In general, the past participle is used in two ways: (1) to form the passive voice, and (2) to form the perfect tenses. Let us consider these in turn.

Forming the passive voice

The passive voice may be formed from the past participle, but only if the latter is derived from a transitive verb. For the purpose, the verb “to be” in all its forms (is/are, was/were, will/shall be, has/had/will have been) is used as an auxiliary; and in the conversion from the active voice to the passive, the subject and the object switch positions. For example, Mrs Hew (subject) taught (transitive verb, active voice) the cartoonist Lat (object), when changed to the passive voice, becomes The cartoonist Lat (subject) was taught (verb, passive voice) by Mrs Hew (object).

Forming the perfect tenses

The past participle is used with the verb “to have”, in all its forms (has, have, had, will/shall have), as an auxiliary verb to form the perfect tenses; e.g. he/they has/have come to pay their last respects (present perfect); he arrived at the mall long after she had gone home (past perfect); and the train will have left the station by the time you reach the station (future perfect).

Without the auxiliary verb, the past participle, if derived from a transitive verb, can function in two ways: (1) as a participial adjective, e.g. he is under the mistaken notion that everyone else is crazy; and (2) as a modifier, e.g. chastened by teacher, the boy quietly returned to his desk.

Alternative forms of past participle

The verb bend/bent/bent~bended has the past participle in two forms which are not interchangeable in their usage. The usual form bent is used as the past participle (the boy has bent the ruler) and as a participial adjective (the bent ruler was thrown away). As a participial adjective, however, the alternative form bended is also used, but only in one special construction: he got down on bended knee and proposed to his sweetheart.

Other verbs with alternative forms for the past participles include the following: (1) drink/drank/drunk~drunken, with, for example, he has drunk as past participle, and drunken sailor as participial adjective; and (2) work/worked~wrought/worked~wrought, with he has worked or archaic he has wrought as past participle, and wrought iron as participial adjective.

As a follow-up, readers may check on the use of the different past participles of the following verbs: (1) mow/mowed/mowed~mown; (2) prove/proved/proved~proven; (3) saw/sawed/sawed~sawn; and (5) sink/sank/sunk~sunken.

Apart from the above transitive verbs with alternative forms of the past participle, there are other verbs which are different in that (i) they share the same spelling for the infinitive but have slightly different meanings, (ii) they are not necessarily transitive, and (iii) they have decidedly different past participles. Take, for example, the following pair of verbs: bear/bore/born “to give birth to” and bear/bore/borne “to carry”. The difference is illustrated in the following constructions: she was born on Christmas day, as compared with the injured athlete was borne into the First Aid room.

Two other examples of the same kind are: (1) hang/hung/hung vs hang/hanged/hanged; and (2) shine/shined/shined vs shine/shone/shone. Readers may pursue the matter by constructing suitable sentences to illustrate the difference between those past participles.

Oddity in an active-to passive conversion

In general, transitive verbs can be changed from the active voice to the passive, and vice versa. However, such facility does not seem to apply to certain verbs. For illustration, consider the three verbs or phrasal verbs made up of, consist of, and comprise. They are synonymous, as are the following constructions: (1) Malaysia is made up of 13 states and two federal territories, (2) Malaysia consists of 13 states and two federal territories, and (3) Malaysia comprises 13 states and two federal territories. Note what happens when we change the constructions from active to passive or vice versa. Construction #1, which is in the passive voice, when turned into the active, becomes Thirteen states and two federal territories make up Malaysia. Construction #2, in the active voice, does not seem amenable to transformation into the passive. Construction #3 can be changed from the active to the passive, thus: Malaysia is comprised of 13 states and two federal territories – but the change is unique in that (i) the active verb comprises becomes the passive is comprised of (instead of are comprised by) and the subject and the object of the verb do not switch positions. (Also see the entry “comprise” in Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 2004, page 294).

Signing off

I’ve got to stop now and get on to another task. Dear readers, if got comments, share-share-lah!

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