A participle is a form of a verb that is used to indicate a past or ongoing action and that can be used as an adjective. In other words, a participle is a verbal adjective. For example, “rising” is a participle in “the rising sun” – “rising” describes the noun “sun.”. There are two types of participles: present participles (ending -ing) and past participles (usually ending -ed, -d, -t, -en, or -n).
A dangling participle occurs when a particular phrase is not followed by the noun it is supposed to modify. Thus, the participle is unintentionally modifying the wrong noun in a sentence. Examples:
- Going to the farm, a snake bit Okon.
- Driving recklessly, a little girl by the roadside was hit and she died instantly.
- Having done sufficient revision, the exam questions were easy to solve.
Let's identify the dangling particles in the above sentences and correct the errors.
- Who was going to the farm: the snake or Okon? The answer is obviously Okon. So, the sentence should be reconstructed as follows: Going to the farm, Okon was bitten by a snake.
- Who was driving recklessly? Here, it is obvious that the driver is the one being referred to: Driving recklessly, Jack (the driver) hit a little girl by the roadside and she died instantly.
- Who has done sufficient revision: the exam questions or the candidate? It is the candidate, no doubt. So, the correct sentence should be: Having done sufficient revision, Judith (the candidate) found the exam questions easy to solve.
For a more detailed audiovisual explanation of dangling particles and how to fix them, watch the following video lecture: https://youtu.be/ldO4we8aYto
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