<p>Can you guys tell me if it is perfectly grammatical to say:</p>
<p>"He picked up the newborn baby, cradling her."</p>
<p>Or, does it have to be, "He picked up the newborn baby and cradled her?"</p>
<p>And I know the present participle can be used to indicate two actions that are going on simultaneously, but exactly how "close" do they have to be? Can one action occur before the other?</p>
<p>For example:</p>
<p>He opened the door, showering water on his new roommate.</p>
<p>(He opened the door first)</p>
<p>Thanks in advance for the help. (I'm taking Oct SAT)</p>
<p>Well I wont be much of a help but you cant use -ing verb without a linking verb (is,was,are,were, etc) </p>
<p>
Showering in this sentence is a gerund(which cannot be a verb) ,(showering water on his new roommate) is a modifying phrase which decribes (he) which i guess is used improperly it must be used before (he opened the door) to be modifying the pronoun (he).
If you want to say that he opened the door before(showering) the correct sentence would be:
Before he showered water on his new roommate, he had opened the door.
^ Notice the sentence is wrong as (he) doesnt have a noun to refer to(antecedent), the correct sentence would be:
Before Mike showered water on his new roommate, he had opened the door.
(What I wrote also applies on your first sentence.)</p>
<p>I hope somebody helps you better than me…
You’ll probably find a lot of posts about this tomorrow</p>
