101. Add-On Participles

Sentences can be expanded by adding on a participle and its dependent words at the end

DEFINITION OF ADD-ON PARTICIPLES

Participles are verbs with -ing or -ed (or irregular equivalent) that are used like an adjective to expand the meaning of a noun (see 52. Participles Placed Just After their Noun). They can function in a sentence in at least four different ways (see 75. How to Avoid “Dangling” Participles). In this post I wish to examine one of these ways:

(a) The disease spread, inflicting much suffering.

Here the participle inflicting adds a new statement onto the end of an existing one. In addition, the noun it describes, disease, is the subject of the preceding verb, and hence much earlier in the sentence. This is normally the case with what I call “add-on” participles, though they can also describe the whole of the preceding statement rather than just its subject (see below).

These key features of add-on participles mean that possessing a suitable ending and being near the end of a sentence are not in themselves enough. The underlined verbs in the following sentences are not add-on participles:

(b) A poor diet can leave a child struggling at school.

(c) The labourers left the fields, their work completed.

In (b), struggling is about the object of the verb leave (a child) rather than its subject. It is also a gerund rather than participle (see 232. Verbs with an Object + “-ing”). In (c), the noun described by the participle completed (work) is a new one placed directly before it instead of one already used before the main verb (see 159. Exotic Grammar Structures 2, #4).

In the next example, the right noun is described but the participle is still not add-on:

(d) Fast food consumption seems to be increasing.

Here increasing describes the subject of the main verb seems to be (consumption), but it does not begin a separate statement of its own. It is just a part of the first statement, occupying the position there of “complement” which is necessitated by the complement-taking verb seems to be (see 220. Features of Complements).

If an add-on participle and its dependent words are left out, a possible sentence will still remain. A preceding comma, as in (a), seems quite common, but is not always present:

(e)  Trains are likely to be delayed passing through the Midlands.

In this post I wish to examine the meanings that add-on participles can express, to offer some advice on the use of a preceding comma, and to explain how these participles differ from -ing words after by.

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USES OF ADD-ON PARTICIPLES

The following examples illustrate different uses of add-on participles:

(a) The disease spread, inflicting much suffering.

(f) The disease spread, transported on people’s clothing.

(g) The king died, throwing the country into confusion.

(h) The clock struck 11, ending the war.

(e) Trains are likely to be delayed passing through The Midlands.

(i) The pilgrims stand praying in the square.

The differences might be described as follows:

In (a) two extended events happen together, but the first (spread) initiates and assists the participle one (inflicting) and hence logically starts earlier. Before the participle, one could add in the process (see 225. Simultaneous Occurrence, #3). The participle seems only able to be “present” (with -ing) rather than “past” (with -ed or irregular equivalent) or “perfect” (with having -ed).

In (f) there are again two extended events happening mostly together, but the participle one transported says how the main event happens, and hence has an earlier rather than later start. It is very similar to the use of by -ing (by being transported). All participle types seem possible: an -ing alternative to transported could be travelling; a having one could be having been transported or having travelled. Having participles express an action that ends before the main one starts (see 267. Participles and Gerunds with “Having”).

In (g) the participle event throwing is a result of the main one died. Unlike in (a), it starts after the completion of the main event. The participle links with the whole of the preceding statement, not just its subject (the king), and could be replaced by a which statement (see 200. Special Uses of Relative Clauses, #2). Before the participle, one could add thus. For further examples, see 32. Expressing Consequences. In sentences like this, other participle types seem unlikely.

In (h) there are two instantaneous events (struck, ending) happening together. The participle seems most likely to have -ing.

In (e) there are two simultaneous events, the participle one (passing) indicating an extended period during which the first happens. The first event might last as long as the participle one (i.e. the delay taking up all of the time passing through the Midlands), or be shorter. There is no causal link. Before the participle, one could add if, when or while. The participle seems most likely to be an -ing one.

In (i) there are two extended events (stand, praying) happening exactly together with no causal link. Like in (f), the participle indicates how the main event happens. However, this is a different kind of “how”. It is not an event that helps that of the main verb stand to occur, but rather is just a feature of it. It corresponds to a phrase not with by… but with in a … manner. Technically, it indicates “manner” rather than “means” (see 73. Prepositions for Saying How).

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PUNCTUATION BEFORE ADD-ON PARTICIPLES

The sentences above suggest that a comma is almost normal before an add-on participle. Only sentences like (e) and (i) seem exceptional. What is it that makes them different?

The answer seems to lie in the fact that add-on participle statements are a kind of adverb phrase. Adverbs as a whole can give information about a verb, adjective, other adverb, or entire sentence (see 120. Six Things to Know about Adverbs, #2). Adverbs that relate closely to a verb tend not to be separated from it by a comma (it would be strange, for example, to have a comma between work and hard), whereas adverbs that relate to a complete sentence do tend to need a comma (see 121. Sentence-Spanning Adverbs).

I would suggest that the statements introduced by passing and praying in sentences (e) and (i) relate most to the verbs before them (be delayed and stand), whereas the participle statements in the other sentences above relate more to the entire statement before them. The reason for this difference is that the types of meaning expressed by passing and praying (location and manner) are typical meaning types of verb-related adverbs, unlike the types of meaning expressed by the other participles.

The type of meaning illustrated by the participle in (e) can be further illustrated with the following modification of sentence (g):

(j) The king died sleeping in his bed.

The participle throwing in (g) helps to name a consequence of the event expressed by the preceding verb died, a typical meaning of sentence adverbs. By contrast, sleeping here names a location in time and/or space, this explaining the lack of a preceding comma.

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ADD-ON “-ing” PARTICIPLES COMPARED TO “by -ing”

I indicated earlier that a participle in sentences like (f) (illustrated there by transported or travelling) resembles the combination by -ing (e.g. by travelling). A question that arises as a result is whether there is any difference between an -ing verb by itself in such sentences and one after by. A difference does indeed exist.

An interesting grammatical point is that the -ing after by is a gerund rather than participle. The preposition nature of by means it must be followed by a word with noun-like properties, and the gerund use of -ing is a typical way of giving these properties to a verb (see 70. Gerunds, Section 1, #2).

A clue to the meaning difference between -ing and by -ing is their punctuation requirements: there must be a comma before the former, as in (f), but none before the latter:

(k) The disease spread by travelling on people’s clothing.

I think the comma in (f) is not only a result of the participle statement being like a sentence adverb; it also suggests that the participle statement is as much the focus of the sentence as the statement before it – that the sentence is informing the addressee of two separate things. The absence of the comma in (k), by contrast, indicates that only one of the two statements is the focus of the sentence. It could be either of them, but perhaps the one after by is the more likely: telling an addressee who already knew about the spreading how it occurred.

Saying something that is not expected to be new to an addressee is very common: for numerous other examples, see 156. Mentioning What the Reader Knows Already.

100. What is a Grammar Error?

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Judging the ability of `statements to “make sense” is not a reliable way to identify grammar errors

GRAMMAR ERRORS VERSUS “NOT MAKING SENSE”

I often hear grammar errors identified with the words “does not make sense”. This is a problem for me because I believe most grammar errors do actually make sense. I understand “making sense” to mean “conveying an intelligible message”, and you can convey such a message (whether or not the intended one) even with bad grammar. If this were not the case, the number of people who successfully use a second or other language in their daily life would be much smaller than it is, since grammar errors are hard for most to avoid.

The ability of ungrammatical statements to “make sense” is easily illustrated:

(a) *Foreign language learning requires motivation and study regularly.

The ungrammatical part of this, of course, is study regularly (verb + adverb), which should be regular study (adjective + noun) because the beginning of the list (motivation) is a noun not a verb (see 93. Good and Bad Lists). Despite this error, however, there is no problem understanding both the inherent meaning of study regularly and the fact that it completes a list of two requirements for foreign language learning.

The question that this point raises about grammar errors is how they can be characterised without talking about “making sense”. Providing an answer is the purpose of the present post.

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TYPES OF GRAMMAR ERROR

There seem to be two main types of grammar error. The first is what I call the impossible combination. This is the linking together of one grammar form (an ending, a grammar word, a particular word type, a phrase type, a clause type, or simply nothing) with another that most mother-tongue speakers of the language would consider to be an unnatural partner. It is this kind of error that exists in sentence (a), since the two expressions linked together by and break the expectation that they should be in the same grammatical class.

Other examples are the use of a before a plural noun (e.g.*a houses), than after a non-comparative adjective (e.g. *fast than) and enjoy without an object. More examples are on the Common Errors page of this blog and in such posts as 10. Words with Unexpected Grammar 1,  133. Confusions of Similar Structures 1 and 138. Test Your Command of Grammar 1.

Our attempts to say why such examples are incorrect form a major class of “grammar rules”. The rule relating to (a) is that list members should each have the same grammatical form. The other rules are that a is usable only before singular countable nouns (see 110. Nouns without “the” or “a”); than must accompany a comparative adjective or adverb (see 82. Common Errors in Making Comparisons); and transitive verbs like ENJOY need an object (see 8. Object-Dropping Errors). Note how these rules tend to involve general grammatical concepts like “noun” or “comparative”. The characteristics of grammar rules are discussed more extensively in this blog in the technical article What Grammar should be taught in British Schools?, and also in the post 61. “Since” versus “Because”.

In the other main kind of grammar error, the combination of grammar forms is a possible one but not the right one for the intended meaning. Examples might be:

(b) *In case the patient becomes feverish, offer paracetamol.

(c) *The war ended at last. It was popular with everyone.

(d) *Working in a city, traffic congestion is likely to be met.

All of these combine their words together in possible ways. What makes them incorrect is that they do not say what the writer means to say. Sentence (b) says that paracetamol should be offered to the patient before s/he becomes feverish, when the writer surely means that it should be offered after. The correct grammar is to use if instead of in case (see 118. Problems with Conditional “if”, #1). For in case to be correct, the underlined part of the sentence would have to be something like …order paracetamol.

Sentence (c) says that the war was popular with everyone, when the writer surely means that its ending was. The grammar that shows this meaning is this instead of it (see 28. Pronoun Errors). Sentence (d) implies nonsensically that traffic congestion works in a city. The wording of the second half should be something like … one is likely to meet traffic congestion (see 75. How to Avoid “Dangling” Participles).

This second kind of grammar error, which we might call “invisible”, seems more prone than the first kind not to “make sense”, and more likely to be missed by grammar-checking software (see 275. How Computers Get Grammar Wrong 3).

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AREAS WHERE GRAMMAR MAY BE WRONGLY BLAMED

Sometimes a grammar error is said to exist when in fact the problem is due to something else. In order to have a complete understanding of what a grammar error is, there may be value in trying to clarify these other causes of problematic expression.

1. Style Errors

Copy editors and writing tutors sometimes talk about the “bad grammar” of using a passive verb instead of its supposedly more effective active equivalent. Whether or not it is right to seek always to replace passives with actives – see 27. How to Avoid Passive Verbs,  69. How Computers Get Grammar Wrong 2 and 113. Verbs that Cannot Be Passive – there is a need to appreciate that the passive form of an appropriate verb is not in itself a grammar error: it is a legitimate and occasionally useful aspect of English (for examples of true passive verb errors, see 142. Grammar Errors with Passive Verbs).

Very often, if a passive verb is felt to be undesirable, its problem is likely to be clumsiness, verbosity or opacity rather than grammaticality. These are problems of what is sometimes called “style”. Style errors often involve vocabulary rather than grammar, but stylistically inappropriate grammar is by no means rare (see 193. A Test of Formal Language Use).

Another often-criticised grammatical structure whose perceived weakness should be seen as one of style rather than grammar is “overuse” of and:

(e) Caesar gathered his troops together AND marched on Rome AND engaged his enemies in battle.

Many writing tutors would recommend either replacing the first and with a comma or changing the second one into a full stop followed by Then he (there are other possibilities too: see 210. Process Descriptions, #4, and 282. Features of History Writing, #3). However, the use of and in (e) is not ungrammatical. English grammar allows and to be used any number of times in a sentence, provided the accompanying words are of the right kind.

A third use of grammar that is often criticised yet is not in itself ungrammatical is personal pronouns like I and you in formal writing. For a full discussion of the problem they are believed to create, see 46. How to Avoid “I”, “We” and “You”.

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2. Failure to Make Sense

Although some grammar errors can prevent a message from making sense, we cannot conclude that a nonsensical statement indicates a grammar error. This is because language can fail to make sense for a variety of reasons other than grammatical error. We only have to think about the causes of difficulty in reading – some of which can be read about within these pages – to see the truth of this.

Unfamiliar vocabulary is an obvious alternative to grammatical error as an explanation of messages not making sense; other, less obvious ones include illogicality, insufficiency of information, grammatical complexity and unfamiliarity of concepts. One or more of these are operating in the following sentence that a student reader reported as difficult:

(e) An important concern in decoding images should be that of undermining the ways in which dominant forms of visual representation reduce complex issues … to a few “recognisable” aspects which appear to constitute an acceptable totality.

Illogical statements are easy enough to understand but fail to make sense because they are contradictory or unbelievable. Most are unintentional (see 170. Logical Errors in Written English), but some are deliberately composed. An example is the following traditional English nonsense verse:

(f) I went to the movies tomorrow; I took a front seat at the back.

The famous linguist Noam Chomsky composed the following sentence precisely to show how good grammar can still be meaningless:

(g) Colourless green ideas sleep furiously.

To practise ignoring logic whilst deciding grammaticality within these pages, see 10. Words with Unexpected Grammar 1.

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3. Unnecessary Repetition

Many of the kinds of “bad” repetition considered within these pages in 24. Good and Bad Repetition are not bad grammar. If, for example, you put now and at this moment with the same verb (a so-called “tautological” error), you are not breaking any grammar rules (verbs can have more than one adverb); you are just using too many words.

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4. Poor Organization

Poor sequencing of sentences and paragraphs in a text can sometimes hinder understanding. However, grammar rules do not usually apply to this area, their focus being words within sentences (see 307. Word Order Variations).

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PRACTICE EXERCISE: RECOGNIZING GRAMMAR ERRORS

The following exercise aims to assist understanding and recall of the points in this post. There are eight sentences, each with one error of the “impossible combination” type to be identified and corrected. Underlining shows not the errors, but words to check if you need help from a dictionary. The links in brackets are to parts of this blog with relevant grammatical explanations. Answers are given below.

1. Even the poorest should not lack of one full meal a day. (42. Unnecessary Prepositions)

2. Governments have the possibility to assist the poor. (78. Infinitive versus Preposition after Nouns)

3. The law does not allow to drive faster than 70 miles per hour. (65. Verbs that Mean “Must” or “Can”)

4. Everybody should be responsible of their actions. (111. Words with a Typical Preposition)

5. Strong incentives make people to be motivated. (140. Words with Unexpected Grammar 2, #h)

6. After the war many people were suffered from hunger. (21. Active Verbs with Non-Active Meanings and 142. Grammar Errors with Passive Verbs).

7. A password is necessary for an access to many websites. (110. Nouns Without “the” or “a”)

8. Modern drugs enable the mentally ill to cope up with life. (133. Confusions of Similar Structures 1)

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Answers

1. Remove of: not possible when lack is a verb.
2. Replace to assist with of assisting; or possibility with chance.
3. Add an object after allow (e.g. vehicles), or replace to drive with driving.
4. Replace of with for
5. Remove to be.
6. Remove were: SUFFER has to be in the active voice here, not passive.
7. Remove an: access cannot have it because it is uncountable.
8. Remove up: it combines with KEEP…WITH, not COPE WITH.