CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE Misplaced and Dangling Modifiers

Modifiers Words that are used to describe other words in a sentence. Adjectives, Adjective Clauses, and prepositional phrases are all modifiers.

Participial Phrases are also modifiers. A participle is a VERB that functions as an adjective. Present participles use –ING Past participles use –ED or are attached to the helping verb HAVE. Looking excited, the child begged for more presents. The woman dressed very expensively is a famous writer.

Misplaced Modifier Failure to place a modifier in the correct position in a sentence. He told a joke to his friends that no one liked. (No one liked his friends???) Correct-- He told a joke that no one liked to his friends.

Dangling Modifier Occurs when a participial phrase is placed at the beginning of a sentence. A participial phrase MUST describe the subject of the following clause. While typing a letter, my contact lens popped out. (The contact lens was typing???)

Sometimes, you may add a noun or pronoun to the sentence to provide a word that the modifier can logically describe or you may reword the entire sentence. Dangling- While sleeping, her phone rang. Still Dangling- Her phone rang while sleeping. Correct- While SHE was sleeping, her phone rang.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR Parallel Structure

Means that similar ideas should be expressed in similar grammatical structures. My chores are washing dishes, cleaning the bathroom, and to water the lawn. CORRECT- My chores are washing dishes, cleaning the bathroom, and watering the lawn.

Another Example My fortune teller said my husband would be tall, dark and have good looks. CORRECT- My fortune teller said my husband would be tall, dark, and good looking.

Errors can occur with the incorrect usage of correlative conjunctions. Correlative conjunctions occur in pairs, such as: Both…andeither…or Neither… nornot only… but also These conjunctions MUST be placed as closely as possible to the words that are being compared. He both collects stamps and coins. CORRECT- He collects both stamps and coins.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE Irregular Verbs

Three principal parts to verbs: Present-can stand alone as the main verb without helping verbs when these are preceded by the word TO, they become an infinitive

Past- used alone as the main verb. It is NOT preceded by a helping verb when expressing the simple past tense. Past Participle- Preceded by at least one, and sometimes more than one, helping verb. Often a form of HAVE or BE.

Most verbs are regular. They form both their past and past participle be adding –ED to the present. Verbs that do not do this are considered IRREGULAR. MEMORIZE THESE!!!! (**Sheet given in class.)