WISE WEDNESDAY GRAMMAR: SYNTAX (VERBALS)

Part 3.

SYNTAX.

VERBALS.

PARTICIPLES.

Careless use of the participial phrase.

450. The following sentences illustrate a misuse of the participial phrase:-

Pleased with the "Pilgrim's Progress," my first collection was of John Bunyan's works.- B. Franklin .

My farm consisted of about twenty acres of excellent land, having given a hundred pounds for my predecessor's goodwill. -Goldsmith.

Upon asking how he had been taught the art of a cognoscente so suddenly, he assured me that nothing was more easy.- Id.

Having thus run through the causes of the sublime, my first observation will be found nearly true. -Burke

He therefore remained silent till he had repeated a paternoster, being the course which his confessor had enjoined. -Scott

Compare with these the following:-

Going yesterday to dine with an old acquaintance, I had the misfortune to find his whole family very much dejected. -Addison.

Notice this.

The trouble is, in the sentences first quoted, that the main subject of the sentence is not the same word that would be the subject of the participle, if this were expanded into a verb.

Correction.

Consequently one of two courses must be taken,-either change the participle to a verb with its appropriate subject, leaving the principal statement as it is; or change the principal proposition so it shall make logical connection with the participial phrase.

For example, the first sentence would be, either "As I was pleased, ... my first collection was," etc., or "Pleased with the 'Pilgrim's Progress,' I made my first collection John Bunyan's works."

Exercise. 

-Rewrite the other four sentences so as to correct the careless use of the participial phrase.

Reference

An English Grammar 1896 by W. M. Baskervill & J. W. Sewell

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