Can in participle

Whilst not wishing to appear impolite, I must ask you to leave so that I can make a private telephone call. Having been invited to the party by Prince William himself, we could hardly refuse to go. Having been unemployed for over two years, I found it difficult to get work. You are in:. Participle clauses. Ramesh Chandra Sharma from India writes:. What is the difference in meaning between these two sentences: Seeing an accident ahead, I stopped my car.

There is not very much difference in meaning between these two pairs of sentences. Sometimes we can use an -ing or past participle clause with similar meanings, as here, although use of the past participle form emphasises that the first action has been completed before the second action begins.

Thus, we could paraphrase these two sentences as follows: Having seen an accident ahead, I stopped my car. In general, we tend not to use participle clauses so much in speech.

Other entries for this word. I could eat a horse phrase. I could murder something phrase. Sometimes it is used without a following infinitive: I came as quickly as I could. I could not breathe. Could has no tenses, no participles, and no infinitive form. There is no past tense, but could have followed by a past participle is used for referring to something in the past that was not real, or something that may possibly have been real: I could have been killed.

What was that noise? Could it have been the wind? Could is used as the past tense of can when it means that someone had the ability to do something, or that something was possible: The Roman army could march 30 miles in a day.

Synonyms and related words. Modals in the past — She could have studied more. Past Participle Adjectives There are several adjectives in English that are created from the past participle form of the verb. For example, broken — This computer is broken. Creating the Past Participle English verbs can be separated into two categories — regular verbs and irregular verbs. For example, So creating past participle from regular verbs is quite easy.

Here are some common irregular verbs, with the past participles highlighted on the right. You should have come earlier. Have you done your homework yet? When I got home my family had already eaten. This bag was made in Switzerland. The participial phrase functions as an adjective modifying children.

The participial phrase functions as an adjective modifying Lynn. Having been participle a gymnast subject complement for Lynn, via state of being expressed in participle. Placement: In order to prevent confusion, a participial phrase must be placed as close to the noun it modifies as possible, and the noun must be clearly stated.

In the first sentence, there is no clear indication of who or what is performing the action expressed in the participle carrying. Certainly, foot can't be logically understood to function in this way.

This situation is an example of a dangling modifier error, since the modifier the participial phrase is not modifying any specific noun in the sentence and is thus left "dangling.