Participles as attributive adjectives: Participles and participial phrases can modify subjects, predicate nominatives, direct objects, indirect objects, objects of prepositions, appositives, objective complements, and adverbial objectives. Here are several examples:

Lost, the puppy wandered from house to house in search of food. A past participle modifies a subject.

Having run all the way from Marathon to Athens, the messenger died. A participial phrase introduced by a present- perfect participle modifies a subject.

Having been shot, he was rushed to a nearly hospital. A present-perfect passive participle modifies a subject.

The first thing they saw was a uniformed man riding a white horse. A participial phrase introduced by a present active participle modifies a predicate nominative.

Do you know the person being arrested? A present passive participle modifies a direct object.

They gave the girl sleeping in the corner an award for honesty. A participial phrase introduced by a present participle modifies an indirect object.

The children found all the eggs except the one hidden in an old flower pot. A participial phrase introduced by a past participle modifies an object of a preposition.

Mary’s life was saved by her sister, the woman standing next to her. A participial phrase introduced by a present participle modifies an appositive.

Thomas Heywood considered Mistress Frankford a woman killed with kindness and so titled his play. A participial phrase introduced by a part participle modifies an objective complement.

The finished product did not seem to be worth the time and effort invested in it. A participial phrase introduced by a past participle modifies a compound adverbial objective.

Participles as predicate adjectives:

The children came running. The intransitive verb came functions as a linking verb in this sentence.

You were seen lying on a park bench across from the train station. The passive verb were seen acts as a linking verb.

Participles as objective complements:

They feel themselves being drawn through a tunnel.

Participles in nominative absolutes: A nominative absolute is a grammatically independent expression consisting of a noun or a pronoun modified by a participle. Here are two examples (the underlined expressions are nominative absolutes):

Their funds exhausted, they knew one of them had to find a job fast.

While careful speakers of English avoid a dangling participle like the plague, they typically allow themselves to dangle the present participle speaking. Here is an example of this participle used independently:

Speaking of food, it’s time to head home and light the grill. The participle speaking has nothing to modify.