Dual Participles

Question

This comes from looking things up in the Dictionary:

Why do a few verbs have two past participles?

e.g. Apagar - is either apagado (the stem +ado I learnt from my text book), or apago (which I think of as 1st person present)

There are a few of these. I find it easier to just accept it. There is probably a history of how it came about but knowing it won't hellp with the others as I'm sure each has its own story. - gringojrf, Jun 30, 2012

good perspective. The origin is interesting, but they seem so rare as to make noticing a pattern and using it to predict others seems unlikely. Interesting though, for sure - rogspax, Jun 30, 2012

Answer 1

There are some verbs that have two participles, regular and irregular (70 more or less) the regular one (the first one in the examples ) is used to decline the verbs, the second one is used as an adjective. Examples : atender (atendido y atento), abstraer (abstraído y abstracto), bendecir (bendecido y bendito), convencer (convencido y convicto), corregir (corregido y correcto), despertar (despertado y despierto), difundir (difundido y difuso), elegir (elegido y electo), eximir (eximido y exento), freír (freído y frito), imprimir (imprimido e impreso), insertar (insertado e inserto), hartar (hartado y harto), manifestar (manifestado y manifiesto), proveer (proveído y provisto), prender (prendido y preso), recluir (recluido y recluso), soltar (soltado y suelto), sujetar (sujetado y sujeto), sustituir (sustituido y sustituto), teñir (teñido y tinto) y torcer (torcido y tuerto). Hope it helps you

What do you mean by decline the verb? - gringojrf, Jul 1, 2012

Thanks very much for this. The adj. version would also show subj-verb agreement (papas fritas). And the irr form may only be appropriate for certain usages of a verb; apagar - apago = faded. - J_G_Duff, Jul 1, 2012

Answer 2

Thanks for all your comments. Having looked into this some more. I now have it like this:

It is the same as in English - some verbs do have two past participles e.g. learnt/learned, past/passed.

In Spanish (as Royaury and rogspax say) there are 70+ examples of these. There does not seem to be any concrete rule as to their usage, e.g. freír (freído y frito), my text book has frito with no mention of freído at all.

From reading on various web-sites I gather that usage varies regionally.

Answer 3

Interesting too. so, are we saying that for most, the past participle and adjective are one and the same, but for these 70-some irregular ones, one forms serves as the true past participle, and the other as the adjective form?

Answer 4

Its the same in English. Why do we say "Had" and "I have"? The only big difference is that we have to use the subject pronoun, whilst Spanish, does not.

Sorry I still don't understand this. I have been taught that has/have in Spanish (present perfect) is present tense of haber plus past-participle, while had in Spanish (past perfect) is imp. tense of haber plus participle. But the p.p. is the same. - J_G_Duff, Jun 30, 2012