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Say I have a sentence like "The child, realizing the parent's weakness, started coming up with his plan to take his device back from the parent." I know it should be realizing, not realized. However, I am wondering if someone can give me a better explanation on why it should be realizing.

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    It's a gerund-participial clause, but it's not a modifier of "the child". It's a supplement, a loosely attached expression presenting supplementary content.
    – BillJ
    Commented Aug 24, 2020 at 15:31
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    No, I'm afraid not. It will still be a supplementary adjunct, a non-modifying element.
    – BillJ
    Commented Aug 24, 2020 at 16:19
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    @Userabc "People [living near the incident will have to evacuated]". The bracketed gerund-participial clause modifies "people".
    – BillJ
    Commented Aug 24, 2020 at 16:28
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    @Userabc Yes, they are wrong. "Hearing" is a gerund participle heading the clause "hearing the noise", which is a supplementary adjunct, not a modifier of "boy".
    – BillJ
    Commented Aug 24, 2020 at 16:54
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    @Userabc Here's a PDF link to one of the best books available.You should be able to download it and save it, which will save you about £24 link
    – BillJ
    Commented Aug 24, 2020 at 17:04

2 Answers 2

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It is not a gerund, it is a participle. The clause is a participial clause modifying "the child". It has no inherent tense (the form is traditionally called the "present participle", but that does not imply present time, it only implies contemperaneity).

A finite verb (whether present or past) cannot fit here syntactically, as it would be another main clause. That would work if you coordinated them: The child realized the parent's weakness, and started ...

Both sentences are equally good; yours treats the child's realization as supplementary information, and only has the "starting to come up with the plan" as the main part of the sentence.

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  • What if I write 'on realising the parent's weakness, the child started....' Is "realising" a gerund now acting as the object of the preposition "on" ?
    – user120390
    Commented Aug 24, 2020 at 16:11
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    Yes. It's worth mentioning that recent grammars do not regard the participle and gerund as distinct, but instead distinguish the kinds of clauses they occur in. A gerund clause can sit in some of the same places as a noun phrase (here, the complement of a preposition). A participial clause can sit in some of the same places as a relative clause.
    – Colin Fine
    Commented Aug 24, 2020 at 16:24
  • Thank you, @Colin Fine. Just one more question before I am clear on this thoroughly. "On seeing the snake, the boy flinched." "Seeing the snake, the boy flinched." It's the gerund clause in the first sentence and participial clause in the second one. Right? And does the first sentence need a comma?
    – user120390
    Commented Aug 24, 2020 at 16:30
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    Those are the traditional labels. I think the parallellism is one reason why recent analyses do not make the distinction (I wrote above that they distinguish the clauses, but I'm not sure they do. I keep meaning to buy my own copy of CGEL).
    – Colin Fine
    Commented Aug 24, 2020 at 16:33
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    As for the comma, I'm not the person to ask. I don't believe in the mystique of the comma. If I would take a new breath group when I spoke it, I would write a comma. In both those sentences I might or I might not.
    – Colin Fine
    Commented Aug 24, 2020 at 16:35
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Let's write your sentence using a relative clause. "The child, who was realizing the parent's weakness, started coming up with his plan to take his device back from the parent." In this sentence the bold part is a relative clause which modifies "the child", and "was realising" is a verb in Past Continous.

We can make that clause a participle phrase by removing "who was". Please, note that now "realising" is not a verb, it is a present participle. And "realizing the parent's weakness" is a present participle phrase.

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    Not quite: Non-defining relative clauses are not modifiers, but supplements. They don't combine with the antecedent to form a constituent.
    – BillJ
    Commented Aug 24, 2020 at 16:32
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    @Userabc No, it's not a coordinate clause, but a supplement.
    – BillJ
    Commented Aug 24, 2020 at 16:51
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    @Userabc It's a supplement. Coordinate clauses are linked by "and" or "but". You really should buy an up-to-date grammar textbook.
    – BillJ
    Commented Aug 24, 2020 at 16:56
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    @Userabc In case you are unable to download and save the PDF I sent you, here is a link to the book on Amazon link
    – BillJ
    Commented Aug 24, 2020 at 17:14
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    @Userabc It's 312 pages. The book that is over 1000 pages (1800 actually) is CGEL though it is by the same authors, Huddleston & Pullum. It's the one I use for teaching, but you won't need a book that advanced.
    – BillJ
    Commented Aug 24, 2020 at 17:27

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