Participial phrase

Introduction

- Participle: a verbal that functions as an adjective.

- A participial phrase is a participle and its accompanying word or words.

Examples:

Interesting teacher : a teacher who is interesting

Interested student : a student who is interested

- There are two types of participles: present participles and past participles. Present participles end in -ing. Past participles of regular verbs end in –ed.

-Why using participial phrase?

The participial phrase is just another way to compound sentences. It provides a variety of sentence style to avoid producing boring paragraph.

Examples:

-The old man is my professor.

-He is carrying a brown bag.

You want to say that there is a man who is carrying a brown bag, and he is your professor. You can add “who is” to connect the sentences:

The old man who is carrying a brown bag is my professor. (you got a “complex sentence”)

Or, you can omit the “who is” and taa-daa... You created something called “participial phrase”.

The old man carrying a brown bag is my professor.

Now, take a look to these sentences:

-I walked into the room
-I found that everything was in a mess.

You wanted to say that you walked into a room, and when you got there, you found that everything was in a mess. To combine these two sentences, you may use a conjunction “and” , and you got a compound sentence:

I walked into the room and found that everything was in a mess.

Or change “walked” into “walking”, remove the first subject, and you got a participial phrase:

Walking into the room, I found that everything was in a mess.

Note:

to produce a participial phrase, use the same subject between the clauses, otherwise, you will produce a dangling construction.

Meaning:

• Cause

Bewitched by his charm, I lost my words.

Not wearing the uniform, he is not allowed to enter the class.

• Time

after: Having finished his job, he went out for coffee.

when: Opening the window, Lois was shocked by a green figure.

Placement

A participial phrase is flexible, a structure that can be placed at the beginning, middle, or end of a sentence. However, don't place it too far from the word it modifies. In order to prevent confusion, a participial phrase must be placed as close to the noun it modifies as possible, and the noun must be clearly stated.

Entering her house, Susan found a dead body.

Susan, entering her house, found a dead body.

But consider what happens when the participial phrase moves to the end of the sentence:

Susan found a dead body entering her house.

Punctuation

• When a participial phrase begins a sentence, a comma should be placed after the phrase.

Arriving at the store, I found that it was closed.

- If the participial phrase is a restrictive phrase, no commas should be used:

The boy wearing the Dracula costume is my cousin.

(“the boy” may refer to any boy, so “wearing the Dracula costume” is attached without comma to point out which boy is the speaker’s cousin)

- If the participle or participial phrase comes in the middle of a sentence, it should be set off with commas only if it is non-restrictive phrase.

Sam, smelling something strange, asked Dean to call the police.

(“smelling something strange” is not used to point out which Sam is asking Dean to call the police)

• If a participial phrase comes at the end of a sentence, a comma usually precedes the phrase if it modifies the first subject in the sentence, but not if the phrase directly follows the word it modifies.

Clark nervously gazed the woman, attracted by her beauty.

(The participial phrase modifies Clark, not woman. If the comma is omitted, the participial phrase will modify the woman, not Clark)