English Language query

[BigGeoff]

Does anyone know the difference in past tense and past participle, as in drank and drunk

[Quizmonster]

In regular verbs - that is those which form their past simply by adding 'd' or 'ed', such as 'race' becoming 'raced' and 'walk' becoming 'walked' - the past tense and the past participle have the same form.

Simple past tense: "I walked to work yesterday." Present perfect tense: "I have walked to work often." In the first sentence, the word 'walked' is the past tense and in the second sentence, the word 'walked' is the past participle of 'walk' which requires the auxiliary verb 'have' to complete its sense.

In the case of irregular verbs - their past is formed by various means other than adding 'ed...eg drank/drunk, rang/rung, went/gone. The forms are different - sometimes totally, as in 'went/gone' - and the functions of past tense and past participle are also quite different, just as in the example given above of the regular verb 'walk'. Basically, the participle is incomplete and requires an auxiliary - such as have/had - to make it complete.