unattached participle clause

unattached participle clause (partisippsetning uten forankring i oversetningen): a participle clause whose understood subject is not properly anchored in the matrix clause. E.g. Having found out what the expenses would be, the conclusion was that I needed ten shillings. (The rule for avoiding unattached clauses is a follows: If a participle clause functions as an adverbial, its understood subject should be identical to the subject of the matrix clause. If a participle clause functions as a postmodifier in a noun phrase, its understood subject should be the antecedent of the clause.) Thus, a corrected version of the above example might be: Having found out what the expenses would be, I arrived at the conclusion that I needed ten shillings. An unattached participle clause is often referred to as a 'dangling modifier'.