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A dangling modifier has no subject and is usually a participle. A writer may use a dangling modifier intending to modify a subject while word order may imply that the modifier describes an object, or vice versa. An example of a dangling modifier appears in the sentence "Turning the corner, a handsome school building appeared". [2]
Another type of modifier in some languages, including English, is the noun adjunct, which is a noun modifying another noun (or occasionally another part of speech). An example is land in the phrase land mines given above. Examples of the above types of modifiers, in English, are given below. It was [a nice house].
See also the discussion of hopefully as a dangling modifier. One investigation in modern corpora on Language Log revealed that outside fiction, where it still represents 40% of all uses (the other qualifying primarily speech and gazes), disjunct uses account for the vast majority (over 90%) of all uses of the word. [73]
6 Types of dangling modifiers. 2 comments. 7 Again "hopefully" 1 comment. 8 Citations. 6 comments. 9 Dubious? Tell us about the dubiousness. 2 comments. 10 ...
A compound modifier (also called a compound adjective, phrasal adjective, or adjectival phrase) is a compound of two or more attributive words: that is, two or more words that collectively modify a noun. Compound modifiers are grammatically equivalent to single-word modifiers and can be used in combination with other modifiers. (In the ...
It works best for the subject and object arguments. For other clause participants (e.g. attributes and modifiers of various sorts, prepositional arguments, etc.), it is less insightful, since it is often not clear how one might define these additional syntactic functions in terms of the configuration.
In the adjective phrase foolish in the extreme, for example, the preposition phrase in the extreme functions as a modifier. Less commonly, certain adverbs ( indeed and still ) and one determiner ( enough ) can head phrases that function as post-head modifiers in adjective phrases (e.g., very harmful indeed , sweeter still , and fair enough ).
One example of a global ambiguity is "The woman held the baby in the green blanket." In this example, the baby, incidentally wrapped in the green blanket, is being held by the woman, or the woman is using the green blanket as an instrument to hold the baby, or the woman is wrapped in the green blanket and holding the baby.