Past participles in Spanish as a noun in English

[Perikles]

Escrito originalmente por aleCcowaN

Which is the difference between "pastillas de encendido", "posición de apagado" and "encendido electrónico" in a vehicle which burns "destilado de petróleo"? I don't see participles, and even less "the past". I only see nouns derived from verbs that somewhat are still in need of being understood within the context of actions, pretty much like it is done by using -ente or -ante (analogue to English -ing), like in "aguas surgentes".

Fine - there is no difference, and this was what I don't understand. They are all nouns which have the same form as the past participle of the verb from which they are derived. Is this correct?

My problem seems to be with expressions describing an object which has a specific purpose, and there seems to be no general rule as to how this is constructed in Spanish. Where English has two nouns, combined, hyphenated or separate, where one noun serves as an adjective, Spanish has:

líquido limpiador
papel para borrador
pie de apoyo
soporte para apoyar
tijeras de poder
aguja de tejer
tabla para cortar
pastillas de encendido

Can you see why I'm confused? There is a variety of ways - why de + infinitive sometimes, para + infinitive other times, de + what looks like a past participle but is a noun?

Is there any explanation as to why a noun generated from a verb sometimes takes the form of a past participle?

[pjt33]

Escrito originalmente por Perikles

Where English has two nouns, combined, hyphenated or separate, where one noun serves as an adjective, Spanish has:

líquido limpiador
papel para borrador
pie de apoyo
soporte para apoyar
tijeras de poder
aguja de tejer
tabla para cortar
pastillas de encendido

You missed verb-3rd-singular-noun-plural: limpiaparabrisas etc.

[aleCcowaN]

Escrito originalmente por Perikles

Fine - there is no difference, and this was what I don't understand. They are all nouns which have the same form as the past participle of the verb from which they are derived. Is this correct?

My problem seems to be with expressions describing an object which has a specific purpose, and there seems to be no general rule as to how this is constructed in Spanish. Where English has two nouns, combined, hyphenated or separate, where one noun serves as an adjective, Spanish has:

líquido limpiador
papel para borrador
pie de apoyo
soporte para apoyar
tijeras de poder
aguja de tejer
tabla para cortar
pastillas de encendido

Can you see why I'm confused? There is a variety of ways - why de + infinitive sometimes, para + infinitive other times, de + what looks like a past participle but is a noun?

Is there any explanation as to why a noun generated from a verb sometimes takes the form of a past participle?

I'm still thinking a good answer for this.

There are many ways a verb becomes a noun, or part of a noun, sometimes trough an adjectival form:

a) detergente (emoliente, suavizante, astringente)
b) encendido
c) limpiaparabrisas (guardabarros, rompeportones, trotacalles)

Reflecting on how it "feels" to me

In group a, analogue to -ing forms in English, it seems to need the present participle to depict "the one which does this": "the one that cleans", "the one that softens", etc.

In group c, some sort of "live action show" is set, and third person singular present tense works like "a lively infinitive"

In group b, there's a need to show the noun as a result of a completed action, because it is indeed (el destilado, el tejido, el raspado) or, similar to group a, "the action of doing something". To be clear, in group a, the one that performs the action; in group b-plus, the performing of the action itself. So, in a spark ignition internal combustion engine, the action could either "ignición" -the act of setting something in flames- or "encendido". I think there's a short list of nouns that come this way: encendido, apagado, abigarrado, and it looks to me they are used when what they do or look has transcended the way they came to be what they are.

But still thinking...