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I'm teaching my daughter some grammar lessons and ended up a bit confused about how to analyze participle phrases such as "removing his coat" in the following sentence:

Removing his coat, Jack rushed to the river.

When I was in grammar school, I was taught that participle phrases act exclusively as adjectives. Thus, my first instinct was to say that "removing his coat" is a participle phrase modifying Jack. But upon reflection, this seems a bit odd. "Removing his coat" seems to tell us less about a property of Jack and more about the way he rushed. Thus, it would seem that the participle phrase is adverbial. Moreover, it is possible to move this participle phrase around in the sentence (for example, to the end) without affecting the meaning, which seems like further support for treating it as adverbial.

I did some research about the issue and ended up finding a lot of seemingly contradictory information. Many reputable sources seem to support what I was taught in school. For example, one college writing program describes a participle as "a verbal that is used as an adjective" and analyzes "removing his coat" as an adjective.

Yet other sources state that participle phrases can be either adverbial or adjectival and suggest that the participle phrase in my example sentence is an adverb. (See, for example here and here.)

Here's my question: are there two schools of thought on analyzing participle phrases? Is this one of those cases where prescriptive grammarians think about an issue differently than descriptive linguists?

Or is there a nuance I'm missing?

tchrist
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Mark D.
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    Preliminary point: "removing his coat" is a clause. It's not adjectival, but a supplementary adjunct (your adverbial). – BillJ Sep 04 '20 at 07:25
  • Is Jack a 'removing his coat' entity or does 'removing his coat' describe an accompanying action? Contrast 'Apopleptic, Jack rushed to the river'. – Edwin Ashworth Sep 04 '20 at 16:33

2 Answers2

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Removing his coat is a subordinate clause, one with the role of a depictive adjunct in the structure of the main clause.

These sorts of -ing clauses acting as adjuncts (traditional grammar's 'adverbial') in clause structure may denote cause, result, or, as in this case, describe a situation taking place concurrently.

Seeing that no one was there, he left. [cause]

He stumbled into the table, knocking over some glasses. [result]

Whistling a tune, he walked down the road. [depictive]

In the example provided, removing his coat has nothing whatsoever to do with rushed to the river but for that it occured at the same time, and may be reworded as:

Jack rushed to the river while he was removing his coat.

These are not adjectives as they may not be used predicatively:

*John became removing his coat.

Furthermore, seeing that there is a clear verb-object structure here, it would also be an error to classify this as an adverb as that would be confusing a category of word / phrase for a function in clause structure.

As far as exact terminology for this construction, different schools of analysis will have different ways of describing it. Relying on a collection of online sources is likely to leave one confused as there is no one commonly accepted framework.

DW256
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    I wouldn't say it's part of clause structure, but a supplement. Additionally, I'd say that "removing his coat" is predicative. – BillJ Sep 04 '20 at 07:30
  • "Removing his coat" is a phrase; not a clause.Ref: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/clause – Ram Pillai Sep 04 '20 at 07:31
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    @RamPillai Scroll down to non-finite clauses in your reference and you'll see that this is, in fact, a clause. – DW256 Sep 04 '20 at 08:46
  • Is the topic non-finite clause? In the sentence "Removing his coat, Jack rushed to the river", 'Removing his coat' is not a clause; it's a phrase. – Ram Pillai Sep 04 '20 at 10:21
  • @RamPillai You've got to realise that you're using different grammars. Have you looked at a grammar analysing 'removing his coat' as a clause? – Edwin Ashworth Sep 04 '20 at 16:28
  • @EdwinAshworth, Non-finite clauses are formed in different ways, including this. At the same time, an analysis of participial phrases and absolute construction, can make it clear that a usage similar to 'removing his coat' is a phrase. Yes, it is also used under the head 'non-finite' which I cannot deny. Would like to hear from you more on what you mentioned "...that you are using different grammars." :) – Ram Pillai Sep 05 '20 at 02:21
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    Look up Nordquist {ThoughtCo} for an introduction. Be aware that some obvious grammarians on ELU give interpretations that at times conflict. BillJ usually quotes from CGEL (Huddleston / Pullum /). Professor J Lawler is a published Professor Emeritus of Linguistics (and gives attributed references to articles, McCawley {The Syntactic Phenomena of English, etc} etc). – Edwin Ashworth Feb 01 '21 at 15:33
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If I may supplement the answer above so that people with old-fashioned terminology can connect it to what they and their childrens' school teachers are likely to know, it is perfectly possible to clothe things that are functionally adverbial in forms that are adjectival, for instance:

John, extremely adept at all types of puzzles, finished the cross-word before any of us.

Here the adjective "adept" serves to explain why John finished first, an "adverbial" function. Participles can also evolve to become prepositions, as in "regarding your letter of the 24th, your order will ship on...", or as the ancient Greek participle of "have" ekhon did, which evolved to mean essentially "with".

So, in older terminology, "removing his coat" is what would be called an "attendant circumstance", and its logical connection to "rushed to the river" could be expressed as "in order to move more quickly".

I, a dinosaur, would say that

Putting on an extra burst of speed, Usain passed his rival at the finish line.

is adverbial information cloaked in what is formally an adjectival phrase, since all participles are originally adjectives, and should continue to be interpreted so as long as possible. This will perhaps keep the formalists happy, if that is possible, but will not prevent the functionalists from doing their usual good work.

KillingTime
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donfromconn
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  • The absolute construction before the independent clause in << Extremely adept at all types of puzzles, John finished the crossword before any of us. >> refers to (an attribute of) John (compare the simpler 'Exhausted, John flopped to the ground'), while the participial clause in << Putting on an extra burst of speed, Usain passed his rival at the finish line. >> essentially gives a second (temporally first) verbal statement ... what John did, part 1. These are conceptually very different. – Edwin Ashworth Mar 13 '24 at 00:43