Page 415 - Practical English Usage 3ed - Michael Swan, Oxford

Participle clauses are often very like relative clauses (see 494.5), except that they have participles instead of complete verbs.
Who's the girl dancing with your brother? (= ••• the girl who is dancing ...) Anyone touching that wire will get a shock. (= Anyone who touches ...) Halfofthe people invited to the party didn't tum up. (= ... who were
invited ...)
Perfect participles are not often used in this way.
Do you know anybody who's lost a cat? (NOT D6}'B1t lentJltI anyhtJtly .'tdfling mea cat?)
3 adverbial clauses: Putting down my paper, I ...
Participle clauses can also be used in similar ways to full adverbial clauses, expressing condition, reason, time relations, result etc. (This can only happen, of course, when the idea of condition, reason etc is so clear that no conjunction is needed to signal it.) Adverbial participle clauses are usually rather formal.
Used economically, one tin will last for six weeks. (= If it is used ...) HaVing/ailed my medical exams, I took up teaching. (= As I had failed ...) Putting down my newspaper, I walked over to the window.
(= After I had put down my newspaper, ...)
It rained for two weeks on end, completely ruining our holiday.
(= ... so that it completely ruined our holiday.)
Note that -ing clauses can be made with verbs like be, have, wish and know, which are not normally used in progressive tenses (see 471). In these cases, the participle clause usually expresses reason or cause.
Being unable to help in any other way, I gave her some money.
Not wishing to continue my studies, I decided to become a dress designer. Knowing her pretty weU, I realised something was wrong.
4 subjects; misrelated participles
Normally the subject of an adverbial participle clause is the same as the subject of the main clause in a sentence.
My Wife had a talk with Sally, explaining the problem. (My wife is the subject of explaining.)
It is often considered incorrect to make sentences with 'misrelated participles', where an adverb clause has a different subject from the main clause.
Looking out 0/the window 0/our hotel room, there was a wonderful range ofmountains. (This could sound as if the mountains were looking out of the window.)
However, sentences like these are common and often seem quite natural, particularly when the main clause has preparatory it or there as a subject.
Being French, it's surprising that she's such a terrible cook.
Having so little time, there was not much that I could do.
'Misrelated participles' are normal in some fixed expressions referring to the speaker's attitude. Examples:
Generally speaking. men can run faster than women. Broadly speaking, dogs are more faithful than cats. Judging from his expression, he's in a bad mood. Considering everything, it wasn't a bad holiday. Supposing there was a war, what would you do?
Taking everything into consideration, they ought to get another chance. •
participles (4): clauses 411
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