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Anonymous Posted 9 years ago
Grammar

Fused participle?

Hello everyone! This should be a quick one:


"Melinda faces daily obstacles such as Rachelle's sassy comments, Heather's dirty looks, and Andy creepily stalking her."


First of all, it's not a very good sentence to begin with, but that last part there... would that, technically, be considered a fused participle? If the sentence had been written, "...and Andy stalking her," then I am relatively sure that it would be a fused participle. It would need to be written as, "...and Andy's stalking her," correct? But with "creepily" in the way, I'm unsure. If "stalking" is functioning as a gerund, "creepily" is what? It can't be an adverb.


Thanks in advance!

  

Top answer

Melinda faces daily obstacles such as Rachelle's sassy comments, Heather's dirty looks, and Andy creepily stalking her. No, fusion only occurs in noun phrases, not verb phrases. The underlined expression is a gerund-participial clause with "Andy" as subject and "creepily stalking her" as the predicate verb phrase headed by "stalking" which can only be a verb because it has the adverbial modifier "creepily", and the direct object "her".

— BillJ

  • Melinda faces daily obstacles such as Rachelle's sassy comments, Heather's dirty looks, and Andy creepily stalking her.
  • No, fusion only occurs in noun phrases, not verb phrases.
  • The underlined expression is a gerund-participial clause with "Andy" as subject and "creepily stalking her" as the predicate verb phrase headed by "stalking" which can only be a verb because it has the adverbial modifier "creepily", and the direct object "her".
  • Nouns can't be modified by adverbs and nor can they have direct objects.
  • It would be possible to replace "Andy" with the genitive (possessive) form "Andy's", but it wouldn't change the analysis, since all that would happen is that "Andy's" would then be the subject instead of "Andy".
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1 Answers
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Melinda faces daily obstacles such as Rachelle's sassy comments, Heather's dirty looks, and Andy creepily stalking her.

No, fusion only occurs in noun phrases, not verb phrases.

The underlined expression is a gerund-participial clause with "Andy" as subject and "creepily stalking her" as the predicate verb phrase headed by "stalking" which can only be a verb because i

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