Dear Experts,

what does the -ing modifier modifies in a comma -ing structure?
Does it modify the subject of the sentence before the comma or it modifies the whole sentence before the comma or it modifies the word right before the comma?

I would be really grateful if someone could help.
Thank you.

Hello Connor1396 ....welcome to the community.

I could have provided a direct answer. But, I think you will gain much more from the links below :
i. https://gmatclub.com/forum/experts-topi ... 39780.html
ii. https://gmatclub.com/forum/experts-topi ... l#p1854172

Hope this helps!!
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Hi Connor1396.

Welcome to GMATCLUB! There are tons of articles on this site on verb-ing. You can refer to the following articles by e-gmat. I am sure you will find them very helpful to clear your doubts.

https://gmatclub.com/forum/usage-of-ver ... fl=similar
https://gmatclub.com/forum/verb-ing-mod ... 35567.html

Hope this helps. All the best!

Hi Connor1396, I would say both conditions should simultaneously satisfy.

Just want to make clear what it means by modify the whole sentence.

For example:

Peter was born in India, graduating from Harvard.

Here, the participial phrase is graduating from Harvard and the participial phrase here correctly modifies Peter, the subject of the preceding clause.

However, this sentence would still not be great because the fact that Peter was born in India, has no correlation with Peter graduating from Harvard. These are basically two completely Independent facts and so, there is no reason for us to use a participial phrase here.

We would rather say:

Peter was born in India and graduated from Harvard.

p.s. Our book EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana discusses Participial phrases, their application and examples in significant detail. If you or someone is interested, PM me your email-id; I can mail the corresponding section.
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You may find this link useful:-

https://gmatclub.com/forum/experts-topi ... 39780.html
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