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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