Participles: B. Present Participles as Adjectives

B.  The Present Participle as an Adjective. 

1.  A present participle is used as an adjective to modify nouns:

a)  The stinging rebuke silenced the rowdy students.

b)  A rolling stone gathers no moss.

c)  Bring the milk to barely a rolling boil.

d)  Being a teacher, I note the use of ‘whom’ on the radio.

e)  Throwing a hay-maker punch, the big man knocked him down.

Missing Words: something up with which I shall not put

About the rule “Never end a sentence with a preposition.”, Sir Winston Churchill said “That is something up with which I shall not put.”  His statement is perfectly grammatical and follows the rule, but he said it to demonstrate that idiomatic English just doesn’t follow that rule.  The idiomatic construction would be "That is something I shall not put up with."  “Put” is one of those phrasal verbs whose meaning is given new meaning by the aid of adverbial particles: run at/run to/run into/run through…; get up/get in/get out…; put in/put out/put through/put up with etc.

•••••From that sentence a word has been left out — that.

 

••••The sentence in question is being placed in the pattern of the definition IV: N+V+N.  The word ‘something’ is standing in relation to the verb ‘is’ as the subjective complement to the subject ‘that’, and equally it is actually the direct object of the preposition ‘with’.

•••••‘Thət’ is being taken as the relative pronoun.  An adjective is a lesser word when it is not one of the key words in the pattern and is not, therefore, stressed.  Unstressed syllables are usually given the vowel schwa ə.  If you read or say a sentence in which the word ‘that’ is pronounced /ŦHət/ or /ðət/, you can be sure that it is an adjective or starting an adjective clause (i.e. a defining relative clause), and it is a relative pronoun, not a subordinate conjunction, a word that joins a subordinate clause to the main clause.

•••••‘That’ would be a subordinate conjunction when the noun clause or adjective clause is a key part of the sentence pattern, and you give its vowel full value /ŦHăt/ or /∂æt/:

•••••So, what is happening here?  It is clear to everyone that you are right.

‘That you are right’ is actually a noun clause in apposition (or parenthetical) to the subject ‘it’, and it should be set off, for that reason, by a comma and never is.  It is still a noun substitute, but it is in an adjectival function to add detail. It, that you are right, is clear to everyone that you are right.  The inverted order is to supply emphasis to the final words.

•••••When you say this last sentence, drop the pitch of your voice for the parenthetical clause in apposition to show that it is not part of the main clause, that it is added information.  Remember that this construction is considered to be formal, and perhaps pedantic, and the the informal colloquial form is "It is clear to everyone that you are right."

Gowers, Sir Ernest. Fowler's Modern English Usage. Oxford University Press, 1968  473-75, 451-52, 625-30

Sentence fragments

What is smaller than a sentence?
•••••Run! Jump!  No, these are complete sentences with the subject 'you' unspoken.

•••••No!  Really? Disgusting! What a creep!  Yes, these are not sentences.  They are interjections and make sense only if you have a context such as an on-going conversation:

•••••"My sister is getting married," I revealed.  

•••••"No!" exclaimed my best friend.  "Really? To whom?"  

•••••"To my old boy-friend."

•••••"Get outta here.  Disgusting!  What a creep!"

•••••"I don't care.  I think they deserve one another."

•••••on the wagon, over the moon, of all,  These are prepositional phrases.  A prepositional phrase starts with a preposition and ends with a noun.
•••••Paul is on the wagon now.  "Jumping on the water wagon" means not drinking alcohol.  It's from the early days of Prohibition when water wagon were used as speaking platforms.
•••••Annie is over the moon.  Annie is so happy that her spirits are as high as the moon or more.
•••••Their daughter, Jill, is happiest of all of them. 

•••••flicking their fans, caught on a bus  These are participial phrases.  A participial phrase starts with a participle and includes its object, complement or modifier.  A participle is a verbal that is actins as an adjective.
•••••Flicking their fans, the Spanish girls showed their interest or disinterest.
•••••Caught on a bush, the tufts of wool looked like cotton bolls. 

•••••flicking their fans, getting stuck These are gerundial phrases.  A gerundial phrase starts with a gerund and includes its object, complement or modifier.  A gerund is a verbal ending in 'ing' that is acting as a noun.
•••••Spanish girls showed their interest or disinterest by flicking their fans. 
•••••Getting stuck fast on a bush is one way to attract the shepherd's attention.
•••••Babies want to learn all the grown-up skills like blowing bubbles.

•••••to flick their fans, to blow bubbles These are infinitive phrases.  An infinitive phrase starts with a participle and includes its object, complement or modifier.  The infinitive is the name of the verb and it acts as a noun.

•••••Spanish girls use a practised wrist action to flick their fans.
•••••Carmen will show us how to flick a fan.
•••••Babies want to blow bubbles.

•••••what a fan flick means, when I grow up, because they are older These are subordinate clauses.   They are little sentences within a complex sentence.
•••••Spanish girls learn from their mothers and sisters what a fan flick means.
•••••When I grow up, I will blow BIG bubbles.

•••••Adults are more skilled because they have practised not because they are older.
•••••Because they are more practised, adults are more skilled not because they are older.

   The point of this exercise is to show you that phrases and clauses may be set off by commas, but they are not punctuated as sentences with capitals and end stops on their own.
   When your Grade 5 teacher said "Never start a sentence with 'because'.", it was because she wanted to avoid those non-sentence answers such as "because he was crazy" or "because I am smarter".  She wanted you to practise writing complete sentences so that you would make better stories and essays.