On Fri, 5 Nov 1999, Michael Kischner wrote:

> "The unpainted house stood on the hill, seeming deserted."
>
> "The cowboy walked down the street, trailing a roll of toilet paper."
>
> The participle phrase at the end of each of the two sentences above is
> nonrestrictive.  Nonrestrictive participle phrases are set off by commas.
> Therefore, the two participle phrases are set off by commas.  But
> something in me wants to strike those commas.  I gues my reasoning would
> be that in these cases the participle phrases are set off by intervening
> words and are therefore not in danger of seeming restrictive as they would
> if they were right next to the nouns they modify.  (Whether they really
> modify those nouns is another question; they seem so adverbial.)
>
Michael, I share your impulse!  However, I have much more trouble with
sentences like these:
        The hurricane came roaring through the town.

        My son came racing down the stairs to greet his dad.

To me, these are clearly adverbial; they tell HOW the hurricane and
my son "came."   (A few years back, a handbook came out that actually let
us diagram such Ving phrases as modifying the verb--but there was a new
edition the very next year in which that interpretation did NOT appear!)
If I move them to the beginning of the sentence, however, they seem
clearly adjectival:

        Roaring, the hurricane came through the town.

        Racing down the stairs, my son came to greet his dad.

And they need commas, but I don't think it's because they are
non-restrictive!