C1Participle clauses22 min

Participle clauses and reduced clauses

Make writing tighter with -ing, -ed and perfect participle clauses, and avoid dangling participles.

Participle clauses replace a longer clause with a participle, so a sentence becomes shorter and more elegant. They are typical of advanced writing, where they express time, reason, result or description without a conjunction. The key rule is that the subject of the participle clause must be the same as the subject of the main clause.

Form	Meaning	Example
-ing (present participle)	action at the same time, or cause	Walking along the shore, we saw a dolphin.
Perfect participle: having + -ed	action completed first	Having checked the report twice, Lena felt confident.
-ed (past participle)	passive meaning	Built in the early nineteenth century, the mill is now a museum.
Being + noun / adjective	reason (because ... is / was)	Being a keen gardener, he knew exactly when to plant.
Not + participle	negative	Not knowing the way, we asked a passer-by.
With + noun + participle	background detail	With the budget approved, the project could begin.
Noun + participle (absolute)	formal background detail	The task completed, everyone went home.

Reduced relative clauses

A relative clause can be reduced by removing the pronoun and the auxiliary. The woman who is sitting by the window becomes the woman sitting by the window, and the paintings that were damaged in the flood become the paintings damaged in the flood. Use the -ing form for active meaning and the -ed form for passive meaning.

Faced with a tight deadline, the team worked through the weekend.
The delegates opposing the proposal were asked to submit forms.
Written in a hurry, the letter contained several errors.
Not wanting to be late, she took a taxi.

Source

Original lesson by Joy English.

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