Identify the participle in the sentence: "The broken vase lay on the floor."

In the sentence "The broken vase lay on the floor," the word "broken" functions as a participle. Participles are forms of verbs that often act as adjectives, providing additional information about a noun. In this case, "broken" describes the noun "vase," indicating its state or condition. The participle gives more context to the vase, explaining that it is not whole.

The use of "broken" helps to create a clearer image of the situation by conveying what specifically about the vase is relevant to the context. The other words in the sentence serve different grammatical purposes; for example, "lay" is the main verb and indicates the action, while "vase" is the noun being modified, and "the" is a definite article. Understanding the role of "broken" as a modifying participle is key to identifying parts of speech accurately in sentences.