The sentence "The blinking sign warns drivers of a sharp curve ahead." contains a participle functioning as a verb.
The sentence "Mateo will only eat cooked carrots" contains a participle functioning as a verb. To identify the participle functioning as a verb, you can look for a present or past participle form of a verb. In this sentence, the word "cooked" is the past participle form of the verb "to cook," and it is functioning as the verb in the sentence.