vineetbatra wrote:Thanks again for the reply Ron. This point raises 2 questions in my mind
1. First of all how do we identify whether a particular verb form used is simple past or past participle when it is the same for both (bough, bought, fought fought); other words, how did you know that thought is acting as a Past participle and not simple Past
well, i would imagine that there are two ways to do this, the first of which (in my mind) is really the only feasible one:
1,
look at tons and tons of examples of correct constructions involving each of these forms, until you can recognize analogous constructions on sight.
this is pretty much the way the human brain is made to absorb language -- by imitation, rather than by analysis. (you are not going to find a child alive who absorbs his first language through the use of systematic analysis. while learning second languages later in life is certainly different, and much harder, then learning one's first language in childhood, all evidence points to the fact that imitative learning is still by far the easiest.)
2, somehow try to cobble together an exhaustive list of every possible use of these forms, try to memorize all of them, and then (probably even harder than those first two steps, as hard as those already are) somehow train yourself to the point where you can recognize any and all of those forms within the distinct time window provided for sentence correction!
i really don't think at the second of these is very reasonable, which pretty much leaves you with the first.
as a hint, one of the best ways you can educate yourself about the proper use of grammatical forms is:
* search them as search terms on the internet
* find grammar sites that contain correct illustrations alongside incorrect ones
* compile a list of those illustrations
* look it over and make sure you know which ones are correct and which ones are incorrect
if you are really dedicated, you can put each individual example -- a healthy selection of both correct and incorrect ones -- onto a flash card, and then, on the back of the flash card, write either CORRECT or INCORRECT and then give a very brief identification of the grammatical structure at hand.
remember, don't go overboard with the identification and/or classification; the whole point is that you primarily develop the ability to RECOGNIZE the forms, without having to name them in order to do so!
2. Since it is Past Participle then I will assume that it is acting as a modifier and it is modifying the noun immediately preceding it i.e. water and/or 60 square miles or 60 square miles of water.
yeah, that's how those work -- they modify nouns. unless there are other intervening modifiers, they generally default to the closest noun.
