Tham khảo tài liệu 'the grammar book teacher course part 73', ngoại ngữ, ngữ pháp tiếng anh phục vụ nhu cầu học tập, nghiên cứu và làm việc hiệu quả | 504 The Grammar Book Even though the main clause in this example contains three noun phrases . Sheila the dog the TV set only Sheila can serve as the underlying subject of the participial clause that is someone who is deeply engrossed in reading a book. Note that all the examples we have given above of sentence-final adverbial participles are of same noun phrase variety the subject of the participle clause is identical in reference to one of the noun phrases in the main clause. As shown before with sentenceinitial clauses not all sentence-final participle clauses conform to this pattern some have an overt subject that is not identical in reference to any noun phrase in the main clause. They decided to wait for dawn each hiker taking his two-hour turn at watch. She walked along hurriedly her purse clutched tightly in her arms. Again we feel that there is no significant difference in structure or function between the examples involving identical noun phrases and non-identical noun phrases. The identical noun phrases have simply been deleted with the remainder of the clause being reduced to a participle. The Discourse Function of Adverbial -ing Participle Clauses In carrying out an extensive study of -ing participle clauses Thompson 1983 found that they occurred most frequently in descriptive prose and very rarely in factual scientific writing. For example she compared 10 000 words of text from two different sources a historical narrative and a pharmacology text and found that the former contained 74 -ing participle clauses while the latter contained only five. We feel that a similar ratio would obtain for -en participle clauses if such a count were carried out. Thompson feels that the differences in frequency can be explained by the discourse function of these participle clauses namely they evoke a visual image in the mind of the listener or reader. Thompson s term for this function is depictive. She adds that the more formal the language and the more descriptive
