《評論》Make sense of a phrase

This article will show how to make sense of a participle phrase. A participle phrase can be put in various position of a sentence. In this article, I will focus on the type of present participle phrase positioned in the beginning of a sentence. A sentence with a participle phrase consists of two actions, one denoted by the present participle and the second denoted by the verb of the main clause. Typical present participle phrases may look like the following examples.

Feeling hot, he took off his coat.

Walking from from his office, he came across man who was selling balloons.

In these examples, there are two distinct actions, feeling and took off in the first sentence and walking and came across in the second. In each of these sentences, there are also two distinct events, feel-hot event and take-off-coat event in the first sentence, and walk event and come-across event in the second.

So far so good. Let's look at some other sentences with present participle phrases.

Shouting with joy, he celebrated his offer of a position in the leading local bank.

Waving good-bye, Jen drove off.

These sentences also comprise of two actions but there is only one event in each of them. Shout with joy and celebrate the offer is one, not two events. It is illogical to interpret the sentence as while shouting with joy, he celebrated his offer.

Similarly, it does not make sense to interpret the second sentence as while waving good-bye, she drove off. In fact, waving good-bye and driving off is one event.

For the sentence

Hurrying up the path, she came to bring us the news,

it is idiotic to interpret it as while hurrying up the path, she performed another unrelated task, that is to bring us the goods news.

The present participle, hurrying, is part of the event of the action denoted by the main clause.

Before I end, I'd like to tell Ahhh that every country has its own foul language but not everyone in any country speaks foul language. Like sex orientation, it may be born but it is also your choice, morality notwithstanding. To speak foul language not not, it is your call.

PS.

A language is dead if it can only be interpreted according to some fixed rules.

A person is dead if he insists on interpreting a language only according to some fixed rules.