Final -ed: Past Participles that Act as Modifiers When a past participle appears by itself without any auxiliary, it becomes a verbal that acts as a modifier. The past participle of a regular verb ends in -ed. Agitated by the music, the crowd waved hundreds of painted flags. Most modifying participles are closely related to verbs in the passive voice. Look at the verb in the sentence below: The crowd was silenced by the words of the nun. Although was silenced is the complete verb string, notice that silenced actually describes the subject. You could drop the auxiliary was and embed silenced, making it work as a modifying verbal: Silenced by the nun's words, the crowd drew closer. The nun spoke quietly to the silenced crowd. Application 7 Application 8

CONTENTS MAIN PAGE 10.1 Pretest 10.2 Your Writing 10.3 Recognizing Final -ed 10.4 Simple Past Tense 10.5 Perfect Tenses 10.6 Passive Voices 10.7 Past Participles that Act as Modifiers 10.8 Avoiding Incorrect -ed Endings 10.9 Review & Practice Part 1 10.9 Review & Practice Part 2 10.10 Fun With Grammar 10.11 Return to Your Writing 10.12 Mastery Test