Active past participles (-вш-, -ш-)

Active Past Participles

In English, we describe a noun that has completed an action using relative clauses (e.g., "the passenger who arrived", "the escaped criminal", "the missing money"). In Russian, we can express this concisely using active past participles.

Like present participles, they act exactly like adjectives and must agree with the noun they modify in gender, number, and case. Most active past participles are formed from perfective verbs, since they focus on completed actions.

Formation: -вш- and -ш-

To create an active past participle, look at the masculine past tense form of the verb.

1. Vowel stems (-вш-) If the masculine past tense ends in -л (which means the stem ends in a vowel), drop the -л and add the suffix -вший (masculine), -вшая (feminine), -вшее (neuter), or -вшие (plural).

• опоздать → опоздал → опоздавший (who was late)
• сбежать → сбежал → сбежавший (who escaped)

2. Consonant stems (-ш-) If the masculine past tense ends in a consonant (like погиб or умер), simply add the suffix -ший, -шая, -шее, or -шие.

• погибнуть → погиб → погибший (who perished)
• умереть → умер → умерший (who died)

Verbs of motion ending in -йти (like прийти, уйти) also use the -ш- suffix, but their stems change slightly (e.g., пришедший).

Declension: Changing by Case

Because they function as adjectives, active past participles decline to match the case of the noun they describe. They follow standard adjective declension rules for stems ending in a "hushing" consonant like -ш.

In the example above, преступника is an animate noun in the accusative case, so the participle сбежавшего takes the matching animate accusative ending.

Reflexive Participles

If the original verb is reflexive (ending in -ся or -сь), the participle will also be reflexive. To form it, decline the participle as usual, and then attach -ся to the very end. Note that participles always use -ся, even if the vowel before it would normally require -сь.

• заблудиться → заблудил + вший + ся → заблудившийся (who got lost)

Adding Context (Participle Clauses)

Just like in the present tense, past participles can take their own modifying words (like adverbs or objects) to form a "participle clause." Remember your comma rules: if the whole phrase comes after the noun it describes, it must be separated by commas. If it comes before the noun, no commas are needed.

Here, the adverb вчера modifies the participle, and because the entire phrase Прибывший вчера comes directly before the noun полицейский, no commas are used.