Don:

I think that Max's revision, replacing I with George, makes clear (to me,
at least) that for your hammering phrase to modify your object (him) you'll
have to omit the comma.  The comma changes the meaning; it changes the
subject of hammering.  The participial phrase here is not a free modifier
in the Christensen sense; it's a modifier of the direct object.  Compare it
with

        We watched the kids in the park playing soccer.

I don't think  you'd be tempted to use a comma here, and adding an
adverbial modifier to the participial phrase, as you did, would not change
that, even though that added phrase tends to make it sound or look like a
sentence modifier:

        We watched the kids in park playing soccer for all they were worth.

I'm almost tempted to treat that participial phrase as an object
complement: Not only does it modify the object; it also completes the
verbal idea, as object complements do.  Your hammering sentence and my
soccer sentence are really different from

         Joe washed the car standing in the driveway.

That's clearly a "which one" kind of modifier; it doesn't complete the
verb.  However, I heard the hammering and we watched the playing.

As you can see, I'm groping here!  Looking for a way to justify getting rid
of your comma!  I do think that giving the hammering phrase independent
status turns it into a fuzzy construction.

Martha





>Now's the time for me to jump in with a question that's been on my mind for
>a while. Sophie points out that the participial phrase at the end acts like
>a foreshortened sentence and thus refers back to the subject. Martha adds
>good examples and rightly advocates the use of the nonrestrictive
>participles.
>
>But what about one like "I could hear him down in his workshop, hammering
>away on his latest project"? I see that this could be written "I could hear
>him hammering away on his latest project down in the basement."
>
>Is the ability to be written as restrictive, which seems to coincide with
>the inability to float as a free modifier, the defining quality of this
>participial phrase that keeps it from getting all the way back to modify the
>subject?
>
>Don Stewart
>--
>Keeper of the memory and method of Francis Christensen.
>WriteforCollege.com
>The Stewart English Program (epsbooks.com)
>
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