A noun may be followed and qualified by a participle construction, e.g. Mary, seeing that John only had eyes for Lucinda, walked out of the party without saying- goodbye to anyone, (PRESENT PARTICIPLE)

John, ashamed of his behavior at the party, rang Mary the next day. (PAST PARTICIPLE)

 The subject of a participle may not necessarily be the same as the subject of the main clause,

E.g. John being busy with Lucinda, Mary decided to go home'.

 John having ignored her so much that evening, Mary (decided later that week to end the relationship. (PERFECT PARTICIPLE)

 The (understood) subject of a participle clause is normally identi­cal with the subject of the main clause. Even if the participle comes first, it is considered to belong to the subject of the main verb,

E.g. Listening to John's charming conversation, Lucinda quite forgot
how unpleasant he had been to her when they were both in the
same class at school.                    

Having been ignored by John all evening, Mary had good reasons for feeling upset."(PERFECT PARTICIPLE PASSIVE)

 If this principle is neglected, as in 

Ignored by John all evening, the phone-call to Mary the

following day was not a great success

where it looks as though it was the phone-call (and not Mary) that was ignored by John, the participle is said to be ' misrelated¹ (or 'dangling¹, 'disconnected¹, or 'suspended'), i.e. it seems to relate to the wrong item in the sentence.

II Similar confusion may be produced by misrelated phrases, so that there is also something wrong with the fallowing sentence:

Thinking about her relationship with John, Mary sat watching the 'gull fly backwards and forwards over the dunes in a, red bathing suit.

IT There are a few common participle expressions which are perfectly acceptable, even though the participles seem to be misrelated, e.g. Supposing- that we held another party, would Mary come?

Mary will come to the party provided that John isn't invited. Generally/Broadly speaking, quarrels like this one tend to go

on for ages. S     Judging from her expression, Mary was very upset. ■£-

Taking everything into account, John has still not behaved particularly well.  " .

Considering everything, Mary is better off without him. The (unstated) subject of the participle in these constructions is ' one '

 'we' , or 'you. '

Naslov

Komentar

manje | veće

Dodaj kometar