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Could someone please explain the sentence structure of this sentence for me.

"Advertising revenue funds development of products and services these competitors provide to users at no or little cost, competing directly with our revenue-generating products."

Should "competing" be replaced with "compete" instead?

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  • 1
    No, competing is correct, as the competition is current and ongoing.
    – Dan Bron
    Dec 5, 2016 at 15:12
  • I’d say that it heads the gerund-participial clause competing directly with our revenue-generating products which is modifying the NP products and services these competitors provide to users at no or little cost. Such non-finite clauses are semantically like relative clauses, cf. products and services these competitors provide to users at no or little cost which compete directly with our revenue-generating products.
    – BillJ
    Dec 5, 2016 at 16:02
  • @Araucaria Thanks, that is informative. I have a hard time justifying what I "know" (so-called) as a native speaker in grammatical terms.
    – Dan Bron
    Dec 5, 2016 at 16:06
  • @DanBron Please read the comment below. What BillJ explained is right in terms of grammar and structure of the sentence.
    – Rathony
    Dec 6, 2016 at 8:16
  • Leave "competing" alone. Terminate the whole sentence with extreme prejudice. It is atrocious gobbledygook.
    – Jive Dadson
    Jan 14, 2018 at 4:17

2 Answers 2

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It is the head of a gerund-participle clause. This clause cannot use a finite verb competes because it has no Subject. We understand the Subject of this clause to be the same as the Subject of the main clause. When we use this kind of construction, we expect the action or state in the gerund-participle clause to be happening at the same time as the action or state described in the main clause.

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  • Wonderful, I always learn something from your answers. Question: what's the deal with the professional linguists on this site (like you, Dr. Lawler, etc) capitalizing linguistic terms. Why is "Subject" capitalized in the second sentence, but lowercase in the third?
    – Dan Bron
    Dec 5, 2016 at 16:05
  • @DanBron Actually, I take that back. I think my analysis is probably more likely.
    – Araucaria - Not here any more.
    Dec 5, 2016 at 16:10
  • @DanBron Well, different linguists use different types of conventions like that in different ways. I put parts of speech all in lower case, but I try to remember to put syntactic functions like Subject or Determiner or Complement with an initial capital to try to clearly distinguish the them from parts of speech. [Particularly if discussing Determiners versus determinatives, for example]. Unfortunately, I don't always remember :(
    – Araucaria - Not here any more.
    Dec 5, 2016 at 16:12
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    Aha, yes, ok, that makes sense.
    – Dan Bron
    Dec 5, 2016 at 16:14
  • We understand the subject of this clause to be the same as the subject of the main clause. I disagree. "Advertising revenue competes directly with our revenue-generating products" vs "products and services these competitors provide to users at no or little cost compete directly with our revenue-generating products.". One must be right, but I doubt the first one is the right one and it proves your explanation is somewhat misleading. Also, you need to note that a dangling (participial) clause's subject is not always the subject of a main clause. There are multiple examples that prove it.
    – Rathony
    Dec 6, 2016 at 8:14
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You can't use the third-party plural form compete as it doesn't have its subject and conjunction. When you have two clauses linked, i.e.

*(1) Advertising revenue funds development of products and services these competitors provide to users at no or little cost, (2) compete directly with our revenue-generating products. ( * indicates it's grammatically wrong)

You have to use a conjunction and a subject as in

(1) Advertising revenue (Subject No. 1) funds (Verb No. 1) development of products and services these competitors provide to users at no or little cost, (2) and (conjunction) they (Subject No. 2) compete (Verb No. 2) directly with our revenue-generating products.

or

(1) Advertising revenue (Subject No. 1) funds (Verb No. 1) development of products and services these competitors provide to users at no or little cost, (2) which (conjunction + Subject No. 2) compete (Verb No. 2) directly with our revenue-generating products.

In order to omit the conjunction and the subject, you have to change the verb form compete to its present participle form competing which can be used without a subject and a conjunction as in your original sentence.

You need to note that the subject of a dangling (participial, absolute) clause is not always the subject of a main clause. You can compare the following two sentences:

(1) Advertising revenue competes directly with our revenue-generating products.

vs

(2) Products and services these competitors provide to users at no or little cost compete directly with our revenue-generating products.

If the subject of competing is Advertising revenue, it should be No. (1) and if the subject is Products and services ..., it should be No. (2).

The following sentence is another example where the object of a main clause is the subject of a dangling (participial) clause.

Matisse watched the elder painter working in his studio, fighting torturous pain with each brush stroke.

[Source: The Best of Bits and Pieces by Arthur Lenehan]

It is very obvious that the subject of fighting is the elder painter, not Matisse. As you can see, the subject of a dangling (participial) clause should be identified based on the context and meaning. There is no such a rule that stipulates the subject of a dangling (participial) clause is the subject of a main clause.

You can google dangling clause, participial clause, or absolute clause for further information and study. It's not important what to call it.

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