1

In the following sentence what word does the participle phrase "leaving it damp, wrinkled and only a little less discolored." attach to. Is its use correct? Is there a special category of participles that "leaving," which carries with it a sense of completion, is a member of?

Taking his shirt out of the plastic bag, he shook the garment a couple of times, ran water over the bloodied neck and dried it under the hand drier, leaving it damp, wrinkled and only a little less discolored.

Zan700
  • 3,376
  • 2
    The default assumption should be that it attaches to the closest credible preceding clause. In this case that's dried it under the hand drier, which makes perfect sense to me. Obviously it makes no sense to attach it to ran water over the bloodied neck, and it's really too far away from he shook the garment... to make that credible on syntactic grounds (though semantically it's at least plausible). – FumbleFingers Feb 12 '16 at 17:47
  • Right as rain. I really wish that 1aiway.com still offered their free online tool to create Reed-Kellogg diagrams, which would make answering this kind of question a snap. – Rob_Ster Feb 12 '16 at 18:47
  • 1
    Zan700 No, along with many other participial clauses like this, it's called a supplementary adjunct (the kind that don't modify anything). Supplementary because it's not tightly integrated into clause structure, but set off from the rest of the clause by a comma (and a slight pause in speech). It provides useful but non-essential information about the situation. Btw, the opening taking clause is also a supplementary adjunct. – BillJ Feb 12 '16 at 18:50
  • @BillJ But wouldn't "Taking his shirt..." attach itself to he? Also just as a gerund is particular use of a participle, but still a participle, is the supplementary adjunct still a participle phrase (clause)? – Zan700 Feb 14 '16 at 14:27
  • Zan700 Hi, I've posted an answer which I hope will address your concerns. – BillJ Feb 14 '16 at 17:09

1 Answers1

1

[Taking his shirt out of the plastic bag], he shook the garment a couple of times, ran water over the bloodied neck and dried it under the hand drier, [leaving it damp, wrinkled and only a little less discoloured].

The sequence in bold is a coordination of three main clauses; they form the ‘core’ of the sentence (notice that they’re all finite clauses). By contrast, the bracketed expressions are all subjectless non-finite clauses. They don’t attach to anything in the sense that they are modifiers, though "he" is the understood subject (it was "he" who took his shirt out … and "he" who left it damp …. ).

The bracketed adjuncts are gerund-participial clauses headed by “taking” and “leaving”; they are supplements because they don’t modify anything; rather they are loosely attached expressions, set apart from the rest of the sentence by commas, and by a slight pause in speech. They provide useful information of course, but they are non-essential and can be discarded without disturbing the integrity or meaning of the core sentence.

BillJ
  • 12,832
  • In the US, the bold text would be considered one complete clause with multiple predicates. "Taking his shirt out of the plastic bag" would be considered a phrase because there is no subject. In conventional diagramming wouldn't "Taking..." be attached to the subject of the main clause? "Loosely attached expressions" make me nervous. I thought participles and participle phrases always functioned as adjectives (unless gerunds) and so modified nouns or pronouns. From the Purdue Owl: Removing his coat, Jack rushed to the river. The participial phrase functions as an adjective modifying Jack. – Zan700 Feb 14 '16 at 18:04
  • @Zan700 Yes, the part in bold can be considered a coordination of three VPs, each with the subject “he”. Some grammars would consider them to be three separate main clauses with the subject ellipted in the second two. I actually prefer the VP analysis myself. Most non-finite clauses are subjectless (no overt subject), and these are too. The two gerund-participials do have subjects (retrievable from the main clause), so there exists a subject-predicate structure, hence they’re considered clauses. – BillJ Feb 14 '16 at 18:52
  • Some participial clauses do function as modifiers, cf. “People earning $50,000 a year don’t qualify", but the clause is tightly integrated and inseparable from the noun (people) that it modifies. Additionally, clauses like that do assign a property to the subject, i.e. that of being an earner of $50,000, but “taking his shirt etc and “leaving it damp” do not describe “he” in any way at all; they simply describe what “he” was doing. In your example, the clauses are not integrated into the structure of the sentence, they are parenthetical-like, and hence called supplements. – BillJ Feb 14 '16 at 18:52
  • We call the supplements clauses because they have a subject-predicate structure, though the subject (“he”) is of course covert. In your Jack example, “removing his coat” is hardly adjectival is it? It does not ascribe a property to Jack, but merely tells us what he was doing. Again, it would be called a supplementary adjunct. Here's a link to the grammar website of the University of London. It gives some useful examples of non-finite clauses (the ones you call phrases) link – BillJ Feb 14 '16 at 20:07