Re: The use of participle phrase
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21 Sep 2007, 06:48
Making sense of participle phrases
Participle phrases are often used in English, and you’ll need to understand their use for all four parts of the International English Language Testing System (Ielts). This is a confusing area of grammar for many learners of English. Learning how to use participle phrases is made more difficult because few course books have a full and clear summary of how they’re formed and used.
Participle form
A participle is a word that's formed from a verb. It has two main forms: the present (or active) participle, and the past (or passive) participle.
To form the present participle, add "ing" to the base verb. For example, the present participle from the verb "to bore" is "boring."
Past participles usually have the same ending as past tense verbs (e.g., bored). However, with irregular verbs the past participle form carries a different ending than the past tense (e.g., gave/given and was/been).
Participle phrases
Participles are mainly used as part of a verb form (e.g., "the audience was bored by the movie") or as an adjective (e.g., "the bored audience").
Unlike normal adjectives, however, participles can also take on direct objects and form participle phrases (e.g., "Needing cash, Tong went to the ATM"). "Needing" is a present participle, and "cash" is its direct object. The words "needing cash" form a participle phrase. This phrase is a shorter way of saying the adverbial clause of reason, "because he needed cash."
As participle phrases leave out nouns, pronouns, auxiliary verbs and conjunctions, they focus on the action that is happening. They're often used in writing to reduce wordiness by replacing longer adverbial or relative clauses. These phrases also help your writing flow by eliminating choppy or repetitive sentence structures.
Reduced adverbial clauses
If the subjects of an adverbial clause and the main (or independent) clause in a sentence are the same, the adverbial clause may be reduced to a participle phrase with the same meaning.
This is often done with adverbial clauses showing time and reason relationships, but some other types of adverbial clause (condition and contrast) can also be reduced. There are four main situations:
1. Same time
When the action in the adverbial clause happens at the same time as the action in the main clause, you can use a participle phrase for one of the actions.
"As Tong was laying his head on the pillow, he could hear someone crying"
can be reduced to
"Laying his head on the pillow, Tong could hear someone crying."
You can see that the subject of the adverbial clause (Tong) is left out and made the subject of the main clause, replacing "he." The time conjunction "as" and the auxiliary verb "was" are also deleted. The present (or active) participle "laying" is left behind.
You follow the same process when the verb in the adverbial clause is in the passive voice.
"When a newspaper photograph is seen close up, it looks like masses of dots."
becomes
"(When) seen close up, a newspaper photograph looks like masses of dots."
This time, the conjunction "when" can be kept or deleted, depending on your preference. The past (or passive) participle "seen" is used.
2. After
If one action happens immediately after another action, you use the participle phrase for the first action.
"After Tong got up, he went to see if his son was alright."
may be shortened to
"(After) getting up, Tong went to see if his son was alright."
The conjunction "after" can be left in or out. The present (active) participle "getting" is used.
3. During
If one action happens in the middle of a longer action, use a participle phrase for the longer action.
"While Tong was walking towards his son's room, he saw a woman crying in the hotel corridor"
becomes
"(While) walking towards his son's room, Tong saw a woman crying in the hotel corridor."
"While" can be left in or removed, as you prefer.
4. Before
When the action in the adverbial clause happens before the action in the main clause, you have two ways of making the time relationship clear. Firstly, you may use the conjunction "after" with the present (active) participle or the past (passive) participle.
"After Tong had hit a hole in one in the golf tournament, he celebrated with the club members"
can be shortened to
"After hitting a hole in one in the golf tournament, Tong celebrated with the club members."
Always keep the conjunction "after" because it makes the time relationship clear. Alternatively, you can use the active perfect participle form (having + past participle) or the passive perfect participle form (having been + past participle). As the example is using the active voice, it would be reduced to:
"Having hit a hole in one in the golf tournament, Tong celebrated with his club members."
There's no need to use "after" with a perfect participle as both would be showing the same time relationship.