What is this?

Welcome to the Forums! I immediately noticed what I felt needed commas: around being a social creature.

Miguel A. Salazar GonzálezWhat is "being a social creature" grammatically speaking?

I call it a participle clause. The implied relationship in this sentence is "because" (though the relationship of main clause to participle clause may be different in other sentences). Yes, it needs commas.

Man, being a social creature, needs to ...
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Man, be

Thank you for answering, I have not heard about participle clauses before so I did some research, would it be more accurate to call it a participle phrase? If so do you know if it is correct to add a participle phrase in the middle of the sentence? Because I found that it either starts or finishes a sentence.

Miguel A. Salazar Gonzálezwould it be more accurate to call it a participle phrase?

Not necessarily. There are two competing schools of thought about the terminology. "participial phrase" is an older term; "participle clause" appears to be a newer term. I like the newer term because the construction has a verb (the -ing form), which makes it more lik

Miguel A. Salazar Gonzálezwould it be more accurate to call it a participle phrase?

No, just as accurate: it’s both a participial clause and a participial phrase. Because of the absence of a grammatical subject, the clause and predicate share the same form. In many contexts a subject is possible, as in the examples below, where the participial clauses are brac