Hi Stacey,
I had asked this question before in the SC forum, but did not get a respond so I thought maybe I would try here. I'm still racking my brains over this issue - pls help if you can, thanks.
A sentence on page 78 of the Manhattan SC is as follows:
The police found the murder weapon, making the prosecutor's job much easier.
Initially I thought that they modifying phrase "making the prosecutor's job much easier" modifies the noun "police". However, if so, shouldn't the modifier and the noun being modified touch, as follows:
The police, making the prosecutor's job much easier, found the murder weapon.
The only way I can reconcile this is by assuming that the modifier "making the prosecutor's ..." doesn't modify police, but rather modifies the action of find the murder weapon, making the modifier an adverbial modifier (which doesn't have to touch the verb being modified) rather than a noun modifier. Can I please confirm this?
Thanks in advance.
I had asked this question before in the SC forum, but did not get a respond so I thought maybe I would try here. I'm still racking my brains over this issue - pls help if you can, thanks.
A sentence on page 78 of the Manhattan SC is as follows:
The police found the murder weapon, making the prosecutor's job much easier.
Initially I thought that they modifying phrase "making the prosecutor's job much easier" modifies the noun "police". However, if so, shouldn't the modifier and the noun being modified touch, as follows:
The police, making the prosecutor's job much easier, found the murder weapon.
The only way I can reconcile this is by assuming that the modifier "making the prosecutor's ..." doesn't modify police, but rather modifies the action of find the murder weapon, making the modifier an adverbial modifier (which doesn't have to touch the verb being modified) rather than a noun modifier. Can I please confirm this?
Thanks in advance.
