Dangling Modifiers

Dangling Modifiers

A dangling modifier is a modifier without a headword - a word or phrase that it can modify. Since a modifier always needs a headword, it will attach itself to a false one if the true one is not present in the sentence. The result will be a sentence like this:

Listening to the sad news, my eyes filled with tears.

Here the sentence opens with a modifier, the participle phrase, Listening to the sad news. After the modifier, there must be a headword naming the person(s) who did the listening. But instead we come across my eyes. As a result, the sentence seems to say that eyes heard some sad news. (The presence of my hints at the identity of the true headword , but my itself is not a headword. It is a modifier of eyes.).

To clarify the sentence,the writer can do one of two things - rewrite the word group following the modifier, or rewrite the modifier:

Edited A - Listening to the sad news, I felt my eyes filled with tears.

Edited B- As I listened to the sad news, my eyes filled with tears.

For Gmat example of Dangling modifier click on the link below view sentence 24
http://gmatsentencecorrection.blogspot.com