Student Writing Handbook Fifth+Edition

Phrases and Clauses / 421

Present participles are usually characterized by their –ing endings, such as speak-
ing or raining. While present participles look like gerunds, they don’t function the
way gerunds do.

Participles can have objects and modifiers, and these words together make up the
participial phrase.

The car speeding down the interstate scared other drivers.

(Down the interstate is a prepositional phrase modifying the present participle

speeding.)

A participial phrase functions as a single word; thus, in the preceding example,
speeding down the interstate functions as a single adjective modifying the subject car.

Participles always function as adjectives, which, by definition, must modify nouns.

The driver seemed relaxed behind the wheel.

(The past participle relaxed is a predicate adjective following the linking verb

seemed and modifying the subject driver.)

When the participial phrase appears at the beginning of a sentence, the phrase is
followed by a comma.

Wandering the woods, Kirsten identifies all the wild flowers.

Be sure the participial phrase modifies the noun that immediately follows it.

Incorrect: Arriving late for dinner, the meal was over before I sat down. (The

meal did not arrive late.)

Correct: Arriving late for dinner, I missed the whole meal.

CLAUSES

Every clause has a subject and verb. That truth separates clauses from phrases,
which do not have subjects and verbs. There are two kinds of clauses:

• Main clauses (sometimes called independent clauses) can stand alone as
  sentences:
  The phone call came during dinner.


• Subordinate clauses (sometimes called dependent clauses) cannot stand alone:
  ... after the phone call came....
  ... when the stars came out....

The three kinds of subordinate clauses are noun clauses, adjective clauses, and
adverb clauses.