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For example:

"He whistled to himself as he walked down the road"

In the example above, may I change it into either "whistling to himself, he walked down the road," or, "he whistled to himself, walking down the road"?

I saw a expression like "when two actions occur at the same time, and are done by the same person or thing, we can use a present participle to describe ONE OF THEM"

OP definitely said "ONE OF THEM". Doesn't it mean I can describe whatever I want using present participle?

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    Both of your versions are correct. whistling or walking. Whistling as he walked or walking as he whistled. Although the sentence must make sense: we wouldn't say "The movie audience laughed there, sitting" but "sat there, laughing".
    – TimR
    Commented Sep 18, 2015 at 10:56
  • Oh i got it, by the way, can the example you mentioned be changed into either " the movie audience laughed there , while they was sitting" or ' the movie audience laughed there , while they sat" without effecting the meaning. are the two sentence i made different in meaning ?
    – 오준수
    Commented Sep 18, 2015 at 11:06
  • He laughed standing would be odd. He stood laughing is normal. See below.
    – TimR
    Commented Sep 18, 2015 at 11:10

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One of the verbs is often the primary, and depending on the structure of the clause, the primary will either get the -ing (action-in-progress) form or it will get the finite tensed form:

TYPICAL
He whistled while working.

He worked, whistling.

UNUSUAL

He worked while whistling.

He whistled, working.

P.S. But sometimes it goes the opposite way:

He stood laughing

but I think that's because "stand" suggests immobility and "laugh" suggests movement, and movement is better suited for the -ing form.

All of these variants are grammatical. Any caveat would be at the semantic level.

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