Modifier

Question

"Peering out of window, she looked at her cat"
How can the correct form of -ing participle be decided like in above case it should be past participle based on the main verb of the sentence.
Special reference to  ccooley

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prabsahi · Answer

Here is my line of thought.

Two main points :

1.Peering is a VERBing modifier here and not a continuous tense Verb
2.I suppose the reason for your confusion is the past participle looked.

Now,lets understand what the sentence is trying to say.

When she was looking at the cat in the past, during that instant she was peering/looking out of the window.
Here the tense of Peering doesn't imply its in present tense and rather implies the modification.

Now lets understand the implication of VERBed here(past participle as meant)

Peered out of the window,she looked at her cat.

This sentence clearly becomes non-sensical.

Peered seems to modify the subject of the coming clause and that is SHE.
Does it make sense with the subject -Yes.
It seems as it acts as a VERB and not a VERBed modifier.

Also,

The sequence of verb is not clear.(peered and looked)

Hope it helps.

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ccooley · Answer

The great thing about -ing modifiers, is that they automatically take the same tense as the main verb they're attached to. That means you don't have to change them! All three of these sentences are correct:

Peering out of the window, she looks at her cat. 
Peering out of the window, she looked at her cat.
Peering out of the window, she will look at her cat.

Some of them are a little strange in terms of meaning, but they're all correct. And they all use the exact same -ing word, 'peering'. In the first one, 'peering' is happening in the present; in the second one, it's happening in the past; in the third one, it'll happen in the future. All you have to look at is the tense of the main verb.

singh8891 · Answer

Could you help me with this one too
The country's economy is unstable, the result of a stock market crash occurring ten years ago
The country's economy is unstable, the result of a stock market crash that occurred ten years ago.
which one should be the correct sentence?

deepverma · Answer

2nd one is correct: tht occurred ten years ago..
The main verb 'is stable' is in present nd 'occurring' takes the main verb tense. Which is wrong meaning.

Even this sentence : The country's economy 'was' unstable, the result of a stock market crash occurring ten years ago. will be wrong also...because we want to show crash occured first then it resulted unstability

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prabsahi · Answer

Initially I thought both the sentences are correct because " occurring ten years ago " in sentence 1 and " that occurred ten years ago " in sentence 2
both are modifying  crash

But on later analysis I find statement 2 to be correct .

Reason: 
Notice  10 years ago is a definite time frame in the past  and so we should expect a past participle in the dependent clause started with "that" in second sentence.
 Occurring is a continuous tense Verb and so will not go with a definite time frame in past.

Hope its clear.

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