He noticed the dog in the yard, barking loudly.

[atabitaraf]

Is this sentence correct?
"He noticed the dog in the yard, barking loudly."
Should the 'ing word' after comma refer to the subject of the previous sentence or it could also be for any other part?

 

[emsr2d2]

Are you asking us if there's a chance that people will think that the yard is barking loudly?

 

[atabitaraf]

Are you asking us if there's a chance that people will think that the yard is barking loudly?

So, you mean the ing-word at the end of a sentence could be either describing the subject or the last word of the sentence, right?

 

[emsr2d2]

I'm not saying anything in particular at the moment. I'm asking you what you think the potential problem is.

 

[atabitaraf]

My question is when we have a participle clause, is it supposed to be only referring to the subject of our main sentence?

Let me bring some examples.
1. Walking in the park, I saw my friend.
2. People cannot see any economic progress, suffering from hunger.
'walking' and 'suffering' refer to 'I' and 'people' respectively - the subjects.

But in the sentence in #1, the participle (barking) does not refer to the subject of the main sentence.
"He noticed the dog in the yard, barking loudly."

So, I do not know what the rule is. Can the ing-word refer to any other part of the sentence but not the subject? TNX

 

[jutfrank]

The rule is that the reference must be clear. It must be clear who is doing which action.

Normally, each clause would have the same subject:

Swinging from the trees, he saw an ape.

From the context above, it's quite obvious that the ape was swinging from the trees, not he, but the subjects of the clauses are different, which does create the possibility of incorrect interpretation, so the sentence is not as clear as it could be.

Barking loudly, he heard a dog in the yard.

Like the sentence above, this one is also technically ambiguous.

He saw an ape swinging from the trees.
He heard a dog in the yard barking loudly.

There's no problem with the sentences in this form.

 

[Phlebas the Phoenician]

Is this sentence correct?
"He noticed the dog in the yard, barking loudly."

The sentence would be better without the comma: "He noticed the dog in the yard barking loudly."

Should the 'ing word' after comma refer to the subject of the previous sentence or it could also be for any other part?

The subject of "barking loudly" is the direct object of "noticed," namely, "the dog in the yard" ("it," "him," "her"):

He noticed it barking loudly.
He noticed him barking loudly.
He noticed her barking loudly.

 

[PaulMatthews]

Is this sentence correct?
"He noticed the dog in the yard, barking loudly."
Should the 'ing word' after comma refer to the subject of the previous sentence or it could also be for any other part?

Yes, it's fine.

He noticed the dog in the yard barking loudly

As mentioned in #7, the subject of the underlined clause is "the dog in the yard": compare "The dog in the yard was barking loudly".

Grammatically, there are three possible analyses:

1. The subordinate participial clause "barking loudly" is a modifier in noun phrase structure, where it modifies "dog in the yard". Semantically, it is similar to a relative clause: compare He noticed the dog in the garden that was barking loudly.

2. The participial clause is a modifier in clause structure functioning as a depictive adjunct, giving descriptive information about the dog in the yard. Note that it is interpreted with progressive aspectuality: the dog in the yard was barking loudly.

3. "Notice" is a catenative verb that has the participial clause "barking loudly" as its complement. The intervening noun phrase "the dog in the yard" is the direct object of "noticed" and the semantic (understood) subject of the subordinate clause.

It is difficult to find compelling evidence to choose between the three alternants.

 

[Phlebas the Phoenician]

"He noticed the dog in the yard, barking loudly."

It's interesting. My natural interpretation of the sentence with the comma is that "He" is a dog, that "He" is not the same dog as "the dog in the yard," and that "He," the subject of "noticed," is likewise the implied subject of "barking." Compare:

He noticed the dog in the yard, whereupon he barked loudly.

It's more difficult to interpret the subject of "noticed" as the implied subject of "barking" when the comma is not present. Then I tend to interpret the sentence as I did in #7 or, secondarily, in one of the other two ways Paul Matthews mentioned.

That said, I do think it is possible to interpret "He" as the subject of "barking" even without the comma. A fourth possible interpretation of "He noticed the dog in the yard barking loudly" is that he noticed it whenever barking loudly. Compare:

The copyeditor noticed mistakes drinking coffee. Drinking herbal tea, he never seemed to catch them.