Verb forms as circumstantial markers
Certain circumstantial meanings are frequently expressed by the to-infinitive, the –ing and the en-participial forms alone. Of these the to infinitive is the most explicit since it usually expresses purpose:
to-infinitive clauses To relieve backache, apply liniment daily.
-ing clauses: Living abroad, he rarely sees his parents (because).
-en clauses: Too excited to sleep, he paced up and down the room (because).
Conventions of good English require that the implicit subject of a non-finite clause should be identical with the explicit subject of the main clause. Compare the acceptable (a) with the less acceptable (b), which unintentionally suggests that the jellyfish was bathing in the sea.
(a) Bathing in the sea, I got stung by a jellyfish.
(b) Bathing in the sea, a jellyfish stung me.
That this norm is not always adhered to is illustrated by the following ‘editor’s comment’ from the BBC series Yes, Prime Minister:
[Working funerals are the best sort of summit meeting. Ostensibly arranged for another purpose, statesmen and diplomats can mingle informally at receptions, churches and gravesides, and achieve more than ten ‘official’ summits for which expectations have been aroused Ed.]
Evidence from a cognitive study suggests that the cognitive weight of the most prominent discourse referent overrides syntactic constraints. In the circumstances, the cognitive weight of the statesmen and diplomats, not to mention the jellyfish, would override the finer syntactic requirement in each case.
