Participial Phrases, Relative Pronouns, Dangling or Misplaced
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Transcript Participial Phrases, Relative Pronouns, Dangling or Misplaced
English III
Participles
Participles are verb forms used to modify nouns.
Ex: The swinging sign creaked in the wind.
Ex: The unexpected guest made a speech.
Present participles ALWAYS end in –ing. They are the
form used with is, am, and are in verb phrases.
Ex: is looking, am running, are reading
Past participles usually end in –ed or –d. They are the
form used with have, has, and had in verb phrases.
Ex: have looked, has stopped, had hopped
A few past participles are irregularly formed (torn,
sold, burnt, read, etc._
Ex: have flown, had slept, has fought
Participial Phrases
Participial phrases are made up of participles and
accompanying modifiers.
Ex: The jogger running in the puddle is going to be
very wet and cold.
Just like in the previous example of simple participles,
participial phrases can be made up of present or past
participles and accompanying modifiers.
Ex: The police scattered the protesters loitering
outside the museum.
Ex: The Great Smoky Mountains National Park
contains rolling hills blanketed by bluish haze.
Simple participles usually appear immediately before
the noun/pronoun modified. Participial phrases
follow the noun/pronoun modified.
Participial Phrase Fragments
Participial phrase fragments occur when a complete
thought is not expressed.
Ex: Freddy stayed up late. Working on an overdue
assignment.
Practice
Finish each incomplete sentence by joining it with the
complete sentence next to it.
1. Waiting for your turn to see the doctor. You can get
nervous.
2. My visits to the doctor always start out the same way.
Getting my blood pressure checked by the nurse.
3. Her clothes being so out of style. She decided to buy
new ones.
Relative Pronouns
A relative pronoun is a pronoun that marks a relative
clause with a larger sentence.
A relative pronoun provides more information about
the antecedent.
Who, whose, whom
We can use who (never after a preposition), whose,
and whom (after a preposition) for people as a
relative pronoun.
Ex: John, who is 21 today, is happy.
Ex: Susan, whom you know, will try to buy their car.
Ex: The man to whom you were writing is the Dean of
our school.
Whose
Can be used with or without a preposition
Can replace a human being or a thing
Is always followed by a noun without an article.
Ex: John, whose father is a physician, will be here soon.
Ex: John, with whose children you play tennis, is a Medical
Doctor.
Ex: The book, whose author died yesterday, is a
masterpiece.
Ex: The drug, whose discovery was expected, will cure
thousands.
Which
Subject
Ex: The drug, which was to prove effective, helped to
wipe out the disease.
Object
Ex: The experiment, which he thought was absolutely
essential, did not teach us anything.
That
That is both a subject and an object.
That can replace who, whom, and which.
That has to be used after a superlative.
That has to be used after the first, the last, the only, it
is …, very (adverb), all
When that is an object, it can be omitted.
The relative that must not be used after a comma (,) or
a preposition
Examples
It is the best example that I can find.
The first scientist that carried out the experiment
successfully won a Nobel Prize.
The last thing that you should do is stop trying.
The only time that the computer crashed I lost all the
data that I had stored.
You gave me the very thing that I wanted.
That vs. Who
The computer scientist,
The computer scientists
who were asked to
design a faster program,
were interviewed by the
boss.
that were asked to
design a faster program
were interviewed by the
boss.
(all the computer
scientists were
interviewed by the boss)
(i.e., only those that were
asked to work, not the
others)
Omitting That
The computer that he bought is a very old used
computer.
The computer he bought is very old.
What vs. Which
What I like in this place is to be served by nice
waitresses!
The waitress is pretty here, which is an added
attraction!
What I like about this house is it size.
This house is huge, which is convenient.
Combining Sentences
When combining to sentences with the same subject,
omit the subject and use a relative pronoun.
Ex: I like oranges. Oranges are delicious.
I like oranges which are delicious.