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Checking Participle Phrases

Participle phrases and information for readers but can become problematic for reasons such as confusing the subject of the sentence and leading to incorrect comma use. Knowing what a participle is and how to use them effectively can tighten your writing and make it clear and engaging for readers.

What is a Participle?

The term refers to words usually used as verbs to name an action, but here the verb is used to modify
nouns or pronouns, therefore acting as an adjective or adverb.

They come in two forms:

1. Present (ending with –ing), such as leveling, heating, etc.
2. Past (ending with –ed, -en, -t, -n, or –ne), such as talked, lost, known, etc.

Participle Use

As one-word modifiers:

Ex. The raging river swept the raft down to the rocks.

Here, the participle raging modifies the noun river, and the relationship is clear, as the words are closely connected.

When using an entire phrase, a participle combines with other words to form an adjective to modify the noun/pronoun:

Ex. Squeezing the rope tightly, she swung out over the lake.

The example sentence has the participle squeezing with the object rope and the adverb tightly.

Note that for clarity, the participle phrase is immediately followed by the pronoun, she, to show the noun being modified. When the participle and the noun are not clearly connected, we call that a dangling modifier.

Comma Use for Participle Phrases

We can also note the comma between the participle phrase and the independent clause. When a participle phrase starts a sentence, we use a comma after the phrase.

Similarly, when the participle phrase is at the end of the sentence and distanced from the noun, it is also separated by a comma.

Ex. He walked quickly down the alley, stumbling over the waste of long-closed vendors.

When the participle phrase is in the middle of a sentence, we must consider whether it is restrictive or nonrestrictive. Restrictive phrases are essential to the meaning of a sentence, while nonrestrictive phrases add extra information which does not change the sentence’s meaning. Restrictive phrases are not set off by commas, while nonrestrictive phrases are set off by commas.

A great resource on composition, The Elements of Style by Strunk and White, provides a helpful test for such phrases: if the participle phrase can be written as its own sentence, then it is a nonessential phrase that should be set off by commas.

For questions, additional resources, or scheduling a session to review your writing, visit the Learning Center website for Writing Resources at ÌÇÐÄvlog¹ÙÍø Learning Center – Writing Resources