Adverbial vs adjectival participle. 2

Question

The dog, frightened by the thunder, trembled.Is the bold part adjectival participle?

Mr genuine · Accepted Answer

an adjectival participle*

AlpheccaStars · Answer

The non-finite clause, frightened by the thunder, modifies dog.

BillJ · Answer

The dog, frightened by the thunder, trembled.

No, not an adjective but a past-participial verb in a passive clause (note the passive by-phrase).

The commas mark the whole underlined non-finite clause as a supplement.

It's very similar to the non-restrictive relative construction The dog, who was frightened by the thunder, trembled, where the non-restrictive relative clause "who was frightened" also acts as a supplement.

Supplements are not modifiers; rather, they have a sematic 'anchor' that they relate to. In your example, the anchor is the noun phrase "the dog".

(Note that the participial adjective "frightened" occurs in examples like The frightened child hid in the cupboard.)

Adverbial vs adjectival participle. 2

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