Honors 9th LitSentence Composing for High SchoolParticipial Phrases

~ adapted from Don Killgallon

Participial Phrases• Participles describe nouns or pronouns. Alone, they are

a verb acting as an adjective.

* Note the difference between appositive phrases and participial phrases: Appositive phrases identify a noun and are interchangeable with the noun, and thus equal. Participial phrases describe a noun and are not interchangeable with the noun.

• The participial phrase is always used as an adjective phrase to modify a noun or pronoun. It includes the participle together with its modifiers, objects, or predicate words.

• Here is a list of sentences, all written by professional writers, but with some parts deleted:– We could see the lake and the mountains across the lake on the French side.

– Sadao had his reward

– The sun rose clear and bright

– Spencer took half an hour

Participial Phrases add distinctiveness to sentences.

Notice how the added participial phrases account for the distinctiveness of the following sentences.

- Sitting up in bed eating breakfast, we could see the lake and the mountains across the lake on the French side. - The phrase Sitting up in bed eating breakfast describes the

pronoun we.

- The participial phrase adds an additional contextual element to the sentence.

- The sun rose clear and bright, tinging the foamy crests of the waves with a reddish purple.- The participial phrase describes the rising of the sun. The phrase is a

phrase because it lacks a subject. A phrase has either a subject or a verb, but not both. A clause must have both subject and verb.

Characteristics of the Participial Phrase• Present participles always end in ing. Past participles end in ed.

Nouns/Pronouns are UnderlinedParticiples are capitalizedThe rest of the participial phrase is in boldface type.

- She was quite far from the windows which were to her left. And behind her were a couple of tall bookcases, CONTAINING all the books of the factory library.

- STANDING there in the middle of the street, Marty suddenly thought of Halloween, of the winter and snowballs, of the schoolyard.

- In six months a dozen small towns had been laid down upon the naked planet, FILLED with sizzling neon tube sand yellow electric bulbs.

Places for ParticiplesSentences Openers:

- Whistling, he let the escalator waft him into the still night air.

- Amazed at the simplicity of it all, I understood everything as never before.

(The first example is a present participial phrase, and the second is a past participial phrase.)

Subject-Verb Splits• My father, cautioning me not to work a horse till he had fed

fully, said I had plenty of time to eat myself.– Where is the subject?

– Where is the Verb?

– Where is the participial phrase?

– What kind is it? (Past or Present?)

My father (S), cautioning me not to work a horse till he had fed fully (present participial phrase), said (V) I had plenty of time to eat myself.

Subject-Verb Splits• Eckels, balanced on the narrow path, aimed his rifle playfully.

– Where is the subject?

– Where is the Verb?

– Where is the participial phrase?

– What kind is it? (Past or Present?)

Eckels (S), balanced on the narrow path (Past Participial Phrase), aimed (V)his rifle playfully.

Putting it all together: How could you rewrite the sentence so it contains an appositive in place of the participial phrase? What distinguishes the two?

The Appositive must identify the subject (so it can be interchangeable with the subject). The participial phrase describes the subject.

Sentence closers• The entire crowd in the saloon gathered about me now, urging

me to drink.

• The entire crowd (S) in the saloon gathered (V) about me now, urging me to drink (present participial phrase).

• She called to him, excited.

• She (S) called (V) to him, excited (past participial phrase).

Unscrambling those Participial PhrasesSometimes, the positions of participial phrases within a sentence are interchangeable: the same phrase could occur in any position – sentence opener, subject-verb split, or sentence closer. Sometimes, however, only one or two positions are acceptable.

- In the following slides, you will unscramble each list of sentence parts three times: first, two produce a sentence with a participial phrase as the sentence opener, second, as the subject-verb split, and third, as the sentence closer.

- Next, you will determine which ones are grammatically correct and which ones do not work. Discuss with a neighbor.

Unscrambling three ways• lost his grip

• dropping helplessly straight down toward the far end of the trailer

• and fell free

• Malcolm

Original: Malcolm lost his grip and fell free, dropping helplessly straight down toward the far end of the trailer.

• coming down the pole

• with no control over my movements

• had a sense

• I

• of being whirled violently through the air

Original: Coming down the pole, I had a sense of being whirled violently through the air, with no control over my movements.

Unscrambling three ways• black

• a little house

• perched on high piles

• in the distance

• appeared

Original: A little house, perched on high piles, appeared black in the distance.

• and yet knowing no way to avoid it

• that winter my mother and brother came

• buying furniture on the installment plan

• and we set up housekeeping

• being cheated

Original: That winter my mother and brother came and we set up housekeeping, buying furniture on the installment plan, being cheated and yet knowing no way to avoid it.