sharad  +  247231 Thu, 20 Jul 06 05:31 AM Is the following sentence correct ?? If so, who is "making it the leading killer" .. As I understand, the noun of main phrase acts as subject for participle phrase.. So in this case 500,000 is acting as the subject for the phrase - making it the leading killer of men and women in the U.S. , correct ?? Or let me ask the basic question.. Do we always need a clear subject for participle phrase ?? Fourteen million Americans have coronary heart disease, and 500,000 die from the condition every year, making it the leading killer of men and women in the U.S. sharad Joined on Thu, Sep 23 2004 Junior Member 94 Nouns

	CalifJim  +  247266 Thu, 20 Jul 06 07:57 AM This is a standard pattern, especially in journalistic English. making it the leading killer ... is a participial phrase. You are quite right that it has no clear and obvious subject.  And it doesn't need to.  The subject can be inferred from context.  deaths from coronary heart disease make it the leading killer ... is the missing connection we, as readers, are supposed to infer.  The participial phrase thus modifies the entire idea presented by the previous material. CJ CalifJim Joined on Mon, Aug 2 2004 California Veteran Member 22,412 "There are no facts, only interpretations" - Nietzsche Nouns

	sharad  +  247270 Thu, 20 Jul 06 08:07 AM Hi Jim, Thanks for taking your time to answer.. Another quick qn.. Isn't "it" referring to "condition" in the above sentence ?? "it" should be referring to "coronary heart disease" , correct ? Sometimes, I get confused by pronoun reference.. sharad Nouns, Pronouns

	Grammar Geek  +  247366 Thu, 20 Jul 06 03:22 PM In this case, the heart disease IS the condition, so "it" can refer to either. (Pronoun reference can be an issue that native speakers make a lot of mistakes with too. When you try to edit someone's writing and say "You have an ambiguous antecendent," most people look at you like you just said something in Maritan.)  Sometimes you need to use logic to figure it out, and sometimes you have to go with the antecedent that is closest to the pronoun. If the sentence were Jane is just back from New York City, while Mary is just back from Thailand, making her the most widely traveled girl in the class, the "her" would refer to Mary.  This is both because logic tells us (assuming you knew that I am in the US) that Thailand is further away and most widely traveled would apply to the girl who had been there, and because Mary is located closer to "her" in the sentence. Grammar Geek Joined on Tue, Jan 10 2006 Veteran Member 19,669 Barbara, who answers in American English. My housekeeping skills attest to the truth of the second law of thermodynamics: Left to themselves, things get more and more random! Nouns, Pronouns