[Grammar] Dangling participle

[giumao]

Hello,

Is the sentence below an example of a dangling participle? If so, is this grammatically correct?

Huge volumes of data are analyzed using AI, leading to a drastic improvement of public convenience.

I think this sentence should be:
Huge volumes of data are analyzed using AI, which leads to a drastic improvement of public convenience.

 

[Rover_KE]

What is the source of the quoted sentence? Who wrote it?

 

[giumao]

This is an example I myself prepared as I have seen the cases on the internet where a participle phrase does not seem to modify the subject of the main clause, but the content of the main clause as a whole. Sorry but I cannot give you a quotation as I don't remember where I saw such examples.

 

[teechar]

Huge volumes of data are analyzed using AI, leading to a drastic improvement of public convenience.

That sentence is grammatical, but "improvement of public convenience" is unnatural.

 

[emsr2d2]

In BrE, a "public convenience" is a public toilet. I have a feeling that's not what you're referring to.

 

[jutfrank]

No, there's no dangling participle.

I think the original sentence is fine as it is. You can interpret it as the whole of the first clause being the 'subject' of the the verb leading. In other words, it is the fact that huge volumes of data are analyzed using AI that leads to a drastic improvement in public convenience. It therefore has the same meaning as your alternative version.

 

[TheParser]

Huge volumes of data are analyzed using AI, leading to a drastic improvement of public convenience.

NOT A TEACHER

Giumao, if I understand my favorite grammarian, your sentence is a shorter way to say "Huge volumes of data are analyzed using AI, so that it leads to a drastic improvement of public convenience." He says that your kind of sentence involves a "so that" clause of pure result.

It can be abridged (shortened) to a participial clause like yours. Some speakers and writers like to add a "thus": "Huge volumes of data are analyzed using AI, thus leading to a drastic improvement of public convenience."

Here are the author's examples: "He mistook me for a friend, so that he caused me some embarrassment"; "He mistook me for a friend, thus causing me some embarrassment"; and "He mistook me for a friend, causing me some embarrassment."


Source: Dr. George Oliver Curme, A Grammar of the English Language (1931), Vol. II, page 293.

 

[Phaedrus]

Huge volumes of data are analyzed using AI, leading to a drastic improvement of public convenience.

I have recently started to analyze such constructions as "reduced absolute constructions." The related "non-reduced absolute" here would be:

Huge volumes of data are analyzed using AI, this leading to a drastic improvement of public convenience.

The understood demonstrative pronoun in the reduced absolute stands for the entire propositional content of the main clause:

Huge volumes of data are analyzed using AI, [huge volumes of data('s) being analyzed using AI] leading to . . . .

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Hello,

Is the sentence below an example of a dangling participle? If so, is this grammatically correct?

Huge volumes of data are analyzed using AI, leading to a drastic improvement of public convenience.

I don't see a verb being used as an adjective (a.k.a. a participle), and I don't see an unintended meaning (evidence that a participle is dangling). The only confusing part is "of public convenience."

I think this sentence should be: Huge volumes of data are analyzed using AI, which leads to a drastic improvement of public convenience.

It's grammatical, but you need to rephrase "of public convenience."

I'm not a teacher, but I talk a lot!