This article examines the semantic and syntactic properties of French deverbal adjectives ending in -ant, and shows that some of them, while behaving morphosyntactically as adjectives, display an episodic value, like verbs; the sentences in which they occur are semantically equivalent to those containing progressive verbs forms. We show that episodic adjectives derive from verbs displaying common properties (atelicity, lack of direct objects pluractionality, non-active subjects, presence of a degree component in their lexical meaning). The episodic value of the correponding -ant adjectives stems from a particular adjectival -ant marker, and results from the reanalysis of the imperfective feature of the gerund marker, formally similar.