Explaining -ing (participle) clauses developed E4-07W

Other English Grammar Lessons

This file continues on from the intermediate level E3-09W. If you are just beginning to study –ing clauses, please look there before continuing with this one. NOTE: the issues raised here are dealt with in much more depth in the advanced level file E5-10W, to which you are also referred. 

Identifying –ing (participle) clauses.

 

Listening to a Beethoven symphony, Amanda prepared the vegetables.

Listening to a Beethoven symphony can help plants to grow, according to some people.

Charles walked in to find Amanda listening to a Beethoven symphony.

 

When we explore –ing clauses, we must remember that you cannot tell an –ing clause by its content. The three clauses above are all identical, but two of them are not participle clauses.

The first is a normal participle clause whose subject, Amanda, was doing two things: preparing vegetables, listening to music.

The second is a noun clause, subject of ‘can help’.

The third is a reduced relative clause: ….. ‘Amanda, (who was) listening to….’

In this file, it is the first type of clause which we are going to look at more closely.

Participle clauses are used when one subject does two actions, but theses actions may be at the same time (simultaneous) or one after the other (sequential).

Reading the newspaper ads [advertisements], Paul chewed his roast beef sandwich.

[simultaneous]

Withdrawing some money from the automatic cash machine, Dorothy went straight to the shoe shop. [sequential]

Now let’s look in more detail at these two uses of participle clauses.

 

Simultaneous time

When we have one subject and two actions, we have the problem of which of the two actions will be put in the- ing form. Again, there are two separate cases.

 

Type 1: unequal importance. Consider the following:

The president stepped up to the microphone.

He brushed an imaginary hair from his jacket.

 

It is the first of these actions which is the important one. It will therefore form the main clause and the combined sentence will be this:

Brushing an imaginary hair from his jacket, the President stepped up to the microphone.

Note that the end position in the sentence carries the most weight: it is there that the most important information is presented. For this reason, although it is not wrong grammar, it would be unnatural in English to use the reverse order:

Stepping up to the microphone, the President brushed an imaginary hair from his jacket.

Further examples where reversal would be unnatural:

Glancing at the recipe, she continued to whisk the eggs in the bowl.

Wondering if his watch was slow, Michael hurried across the square.

Type 2: equal importance.

There are many cases where the writer has a choice of which action to emphasise, as either is capable of being given more importance than the other:

She looked him in the eyes.

She stepped forward.

We have a choice here:

a) Looking him in the eyes, she stepped forward.

b) Stepping forward, she looked him in the eyes.

Remember, the main clause – the one without the -ing form - will contain the information/action we wish to emphasise and will normally be placed last.

 

Sequential time

Here, one thing happens followed by another. The test here is that we would use not while, but then.

Look at these two sentences:

She got undressed. She stepped into the shower.

We could write these in one sentence as:

She got undressed, then she stepped into the shower.

Now let’s look at how to use an –ing clause here. First, we write the sentences in the order in which they happened. Second, we put the first one in the –ing form.

Getting undressed, she stepped into the shower.

 

BEWARE! If we reverse this, making the second one into the participle clause, the meaning changes:

She got undressed stepping into the shower.[1]

The meaning of this is: She got undressed (at the same time) as she stepped into the shower. [getting most of her clothes wet, presumably.]  Here is another example:

 

He finished his exam. He walked out into the sunlight.

Finishing his exam, he walked out into the sunlight.

Remember that if we reverse the actions:

Walking out into the sunlight, he finished his exam.

then the meaning is that he finished his exam outside,  after walking out into the sunlight.

 

Summary

 

Being able to use participle clauses will add enormously to your range of expression in English. They are basically simply, but you need to remember one or two rules. Let’s summarise them briefly.

When one subject does two actions, you – the writer – tell the reader which one is most important by putting it at the end of the sentence.

Blinking back the tears, he told the press conference of his wife’s accident.

When the two actions happen not at the same time but one after the other, we must write them in the order in which they happened.

Checking his parachute for the last time, he jumped out of the plane.

You can now try to apply these principles by doing practice exercise P4-07W