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A dangling modifier 〔McArthur, Tom, ed. The Oxford Companion to the English Language, pp. 752-753. Oxford University Press, 1992, ISBN 0-19-214183-X The dangling modifier or participle〕 is an ambiguous grammatical construct, whereby a grammatical modifier could be misinterpreted as being associated with a word other than the one intended or with no particular word at all. For example, a writer may have meant to modify the subject, but word order makes the modifier seem to modify an object instead. Such ambiguities can lead to unintentional humor or difficulty in understanding a sentence in formal contexts. A typical example of a dangling modifier is illustrated in ''Turning the corner, a handsome school building appeared.''〔(''Merriam Webster's dictionary of English Usage'' p. 315 ), Merriam-Webster, 1995〕 The modifying clause ''Turning the corner'' is clearly supposed to describe the behavior of the narrator (or other observer), but grammatically it appears to apply to nothing in particular or to the school building. Similarly, in ''At the age of eight, my family finally bought a dog'',〔(''The Least You Should Know about English'' p. 134 ), Wilson and Glazier, Cengage Learning, 2008〕 the modifier ''At the age of eight'' "dangles", not attaching to the subject of the main clause (and possibly implying that the ''family'' was eight years old when it bought the dog, rather than the intended meaning of giving the ''narrator's'' age at the time). == Dangling modifier clauses == As an adjunct, a modifier clause is normally at the beginning or the end of a sentence, and usually attached to the subject of the main clause, as in "Walking down the street (clause), the man (subject) saw the beautiful trees (object)." However, when the subject is missing or the clause attaches itself to another object in a sentence, the clause is seemingly "hanging" on nothing or on an entirely inappropriate noun. It thus "dangles", as in these sentences: Walking down Main Street, the trees were beautiful. Reaching the station, the sun came out. In the first sentence, the adjunct clause may at first appear to modify "the trees", the subject of the sentence. However, it actually modifies the speaker of the sentence, who is not explicitly mentioned. In the second sentence, the adjunct may at first appear to modify "the sun", the subject of the sentence. Presumably, there is another, human subject that did reach the station and observed the sun coming out, but since this subject is not mentioned in the text, the intended meaning is obscured, and therefore this kind of sentence is incorrect in standard English. Strunk and White's ''The Elements of Style'' provides another kind of example, a misplaced modifier (another participle): I saw the trailer peeking through the window. Presumably, this means the speaker was peeking through the window, but the placement of the clause "peeking through the window" makes it sound as though the trailer were doing so. The sentence can be recast as, "Peeking through the window, I saw the trailer." Similarly, in "She left the room fuming", it is conceivably the room, rather than "she", that was fuming, though it is unlikely that anybody would interpret it this way. Strunk and White describe as "ludicrous" another of their examples: "Being in a dilapidated condition, I was able to buy the house very cheap." The author obviously meant the house was dilapidated. But (in the opinion of Strunk and White) what he wrote was that ''he'' (the speaker or writer, identified as "I") was dilapidated. Bernstein offers another ludicrous example: "Roaring down the track at seventy miles an hour, the stalled car was smashed by the train." 〔 Theodore M. Bernstein, ''The Careful Writer: A Modern Guide to English Usage'' (New York: Atheneum, 1985), 128. 〕 The adjunct is meant to modify "train": it is the train that is roaring down the track. But the subject of the main clause is "the stalled car". The writer is suggesting that the stalled car, which really isn't moving at all, is roaring down the track. The sentence could be rewritten more felicitously: "Roaring down the track at seventy miles an hour, the train smashed the stalled car." Or: "The stalled car was smashed by the train, roaring down the track at seventy miles an hour." Follett provides yet another ludicrous example: "Leaping to the saddle, his horse bolted." 〔 Wilson Follett, ''Modern American Usage: A Guide'' (New York: Hill and Wang, 1966), 117. 〕 But who leaped? Presumably the horseman – certainly not the horse, which was wearing the saddle. In this example, the noun or pronoun intended to be modified isn't even in the sentence. Unproblematic: "Leaping to the saddle, he made his horse bolt forward", or "As he leaped into the saddle, his horse bolted." (In the latter, the non-finite adjunct clause is replaced by a finite subordinate clause.) These examples illustrate a writing principle that dangling participles violate. Follett states the principle: "A participle at the head of a sentence automatically affixes itself to the subject of the following verb – in effect a requirement that the writer either make his () subject consistent with the participle or discard the participle for some other construction." 〔 Strunk and White put it this way: "A participle phrase at the beginning of a sentence must refer to the grammatical subject." 〔 Strunk and White, 13. 〕 Dangling participles should not be confused with clauses in absolute constructions, which are considered grammatical. Because the participle phrase in an absolute construction is not semantically attached to any single element in the sentence, it is easily confused with a dangling participle. The difference is that a participle phrase is intended to modify a particular noun or pronoun, but is instead erroneously attached to a different noun, whereas as an absolute clause is not intended to modify any noun at all. An example of an absolute construction is: The weather being beautiful, we plan to go to the beach today. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Dangling modifier」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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