There is another group of modifiers that are illogical not because of faulty placement but because of faulty grammatical relations with other elements in the sentence. A change in word order, therefore, will not generally suffice to correct them; the translator has to deal with them in other ways. It is modifiers of this sort, which are traditionally called “unattached” or “dangling,” that we shall turn to now.

Dangling participles

Like any adjective, a participle (or participial phrase) needs to be closely linked to the noun or pronoun it modifies. When it is not, it is said to “dangle”.

The difficulty presented by a participle arises most frequently when it stands at the beginning of a sentence. To satisfy the demands of logic, an opening participial phrase must modify the subject of the sentence (the subject of the main verb).

A: Using either military or peaceful means, most of the remaining enemy forces were put out of action.

B: Using either military or peaceful means, we put most of the remaining enemy forces out of action.

[Analysis: The subject of this sentence is “most of the enemy forces.” But it was not they who were “using either military or peaceful means.” Rather, it was “we” (the revolutionary forces) who used those means to put the enemy out of action.]

A: Conveniently situated, traffic from Jin Hui Tower to Beijing International Airport takes only 1/2 hour via the Third Ring Road.

B: The Jin Hui Tower is conveniently situated, only 1/2 hour from Beijing International Airport via the Third Ring Road.

[Analysis: The subject of this sentence is “traffic”. But it is not the traffic that is “conveniently situated.”]

These examples illustrate the two possible ways of recasting a sentence to eliminate a dangling participle. You can either:

Make the word that the participle logically modifies the subject of the sentence, or