Help! Grammar Question

[analeigh]

I'm a very new teacher, and my school assigned me to teach TOEFL writing. I'm trying to keep up with my students about grammar, but it's tough because, for the most part, they know more than I do. They're all advanced and I'm a brand new teacher, I just started in September.

One of my students asked me a question today that I really can't find an answer for: she wanted to know the rule about how to create sentences such as, "Being asked, she was forced to admit her mistake." I think "being asked" is the present passive participle, but I can't find any information about rules of how and when it is formed and used. Can anyone help?

Thanks,
ac

[jotham]

You might check, but I think the right way to say it is "having been asked,..."
This is a participial modifier. Your example acts as an adjective modifiying the subject she. Here is a site with lots of information if you scroll down a bit:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/ ... rbals.html

[EH]

Try posting this on the applied linguistics board. There are lots of great grammarians there.

-EH

[ydrysss]

I suggest you look up the meaning of a "gerund" because this sentence sounds a little bit like a "sentence fragment" or an example of elipsis.

[jotham]

I don't think I'd go there. A gerund is a noun, but the subject is she.

[Stephen Jones]

You might check, but I think the right way to say it is "having been asked,..."

Nope, that's different.

'Being asked' is perfectly correct. It's a participial construction, the same as
"Feeling hungry, he bought a hot dog."

[jotham]

Ok, I think I "might could" understand now: "Being asked by the King to admit her mistake, she was forced to admit her mistake right there on the spot." I read it different: "Having been asked a question that challenged her belief, she was forced to admit her mistake."
That's why I said it needed to be checked: the sentence doesn't tell us much about the situation. They can both work depending on the situation.

[JuanTwoThree]

It's only partly a time thing: "Being asked" does suggest to me that the answer was wanted there and then, or better still that it was being asked over and over again. "Having been" suggests a time gap between the asking and the answering.

Saying that/Having said that, something about "Being asked" jars.

Perhaps it'd sounds better if we knew what she was being asked, or "asked" is not the best word, or it sounds as if someone has forgotten the "On" of "On being asked" or perhaps it only works best as "background":

"Feeling under pressure, she was forced......."

"Constantly being asked (what though?), she was forced ........"

In other words it's a short version of "She was being asked something and she was forced........"

Though the more I think about it, "Being asked" is just too terse.

I'll stop now. I feel my cheeks bulging, whiskers appearing and I want to run inside a little wheel.

[sbourque]

I'd prefer to use "When asked, she..."

This is an example of what my text (Top 20: Great Grammar for Great Writing) calls an "adverb clause reduction".

[lolwhites]

One of my Linguistics lecturers said that "dangling participles" (as she called them) were unacceptable in written English, and alternative constructions should be used (e.g. in this case we should say As he had been asked...).

IIRC Prince Charles was criticised in the media for his grammar when, during an interview, he said his marriage to Diana had "irretrievably broken down, us both having tried".

[JuanTwoThree]

It's his mum's English. She probably told him he could say anything he wanted.

[Stephen Jones]

This one isn't dangling. It's right next to what it qualifies.

[jotham]

Yes, Stephen Jones is right. A dangling modifier would be "Going out the door, the clock struck twelve." It is dangling because the clock isn't going out the door — a person presumably is.
Analeigh's getting so much help on this one sentence alone. After we left no stone unturned, there shouldn't be any grammar question students ask that will trip her now.