Grammar Marisa de Dios
PARTICIPLE AND TO-INF I N I T I V E CLAUSES Advanced Expert. Longman Participle clauses allow us to express ourselves economically , both in speech and writing.
A. –ing participle clauses We can use –ing participle clauses:
-
To show that two actions occurred at the same time, or one happened immediately after another. Turning to the crowd, he smiled and waved (he turned to the crowd and smiled) A perfect participle can be used to emphasise that one thing happened before another. Having taken off his shoes, he walked upstairs
-
To suggest a cause, reason or result , especially with stative verbs such as be, believe, feel, have, know want: Feeling ill, I decided to stay at home
-
To replace adverbial clauses of time or contrast. The participle clause is introduced by conjunction: On seeing her brother, she gave him a big hug .
B. –ED PARTICIPLE CLAUSES They have a passive meaning and are more frequent in written English. They can be used to suggest cause, reason and condition I applied for the job, convinced I could do it
• •
If the subject of a participle clause is not stated, it must be the same as the subject of the main clause. If the subject of a participle clause is stated, it can be different from the subject of the main clause. It being high season, all the hotels were fully booked.
C. TO-INF I N I T I V E CLAUSES These may be used to express purpose and sometimes consequence, condition or result: I’ve been there often enough to know my way around.
Replacing relative clauses We can often reduce a relative clause by omitting the relative pronoun and the auxiliary verb. The man (who was) living next door…. We can sometimes replace a relative clause containing a modal with a to-infinitive. There is no one here to speak to (= who I ca speak to) Rewrite these sentences, replacing the parts in italics with a suitable participle clause. Make any changes necessary.