1.1. MISRELATED PARTICIPLES3 VERY OFTEN, AN ING-PARTICIPLE CLAUSE US...

3.1.1. Misrelated participles

3 Very often, an ing-participle clause usually occurs without subject. The subject

of the verbial ing-participle clause is understood the same as the subject in the

main clause. When two clauses do not share a common subject, we call the

adverbial ing-participle clause an illogical participle clause, or misrelated

participle. For example:

After jumping out of a boat, the shark bit the man.

This sentence make the listeners or the readers think that "the shark jumped out of

the boat and then bit the man". But the actual subject of the verb "jumping” is the

"man” therefore immediately after the comma , we must mention "the man”.

Vietnamese students usually make this mistake because they transfer from

Vietnamese to English and they are influenced by their mother tongue . In

Vietnamese they may say: ”khi ngời đàn ông nhảy ra khỏi thuyền, một con cá

mập đớp ông ta một miếng” and they translate it into English like this: “After

jumping out of the boat, the shark bit the man.” The correct sentence is :

After jumping out of the boat, the man was bitten by the shark.

For clarity, introductory ing-participle clauses must be followed immediately by

the noun which is logically responsible for the action of the adverbial ing-

participle clause .

Other examples:

* Incorrect:

When using this machine, it must be remembered to turn the red

button on.

Correct:

When using this machine, you must remember to turn the red button

on.

Looking out of the window of our hotel room, there was a

wonderful range of mountains.

Looking out of the window of our hotel room, we saw a

Believing that I was the only person who k new about this

beach, the sight of someone else on it annoyed me very much.

Correct:

Believing that I was the only person in the beach, I was

annoyed by the sight of someone else.

Misrelated participles usually found in some groups of the verb expressing the

speakers’ attitude. For example:

Judging from his expression, he is in a bad mood.

Considering everything, it was not a bad holiday.

Correct form:

Judging from his expression, we find that he is in the bad mood.

Considering everything, we see that it was not a bad holiday.