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Good Day!

I've encountered with the following issue:

An example given from Participle I Rule:

"He looked at me knowing that I would win."

In this case the action "knowing" refers to "him", so it's to be understood as:

"He looked at me and he knew that I would win.

and the next example:

"This is a picture of me waiting for the train."

In this case the action "waiting" refers to "me", not to the "picture", so it's to be understood as:

"This is a picture of me, which shows that I was waiting for the train."

And the question is: "How to understand, when seeing a sentence like the first example, the meaning of such sentence?"

"He looked at me knowing that I would win."

Why the action "knowing" can only refer to "him", but not to "me", and to be understood as:

"He looked at me and understood that I knew that I would win."

I hope my question will be understood and given an answer :)

virolino
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Lone Wanderer
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    I think the only answer is "context". In "He looked at me knowing that I would win", he couldn't literally see my knowing, so it has to modify how he looked at me. In "He watched me sitting in the chair", it makes more sense to interpret it as me sitting. If you wanted to specify that it was him sitting, you would have to say "He watched me, sitting in the chair." But there's often some ambiguity in these sentences. – stangdon Feb 11 '17 at 18:39
  • Very many thanks for answering me! So, let me make it clear again "He watched me, sitting in the chair" - it's to be understood as "He sat in the chair and then watched me" and "He watched me sitting in the chair " - it's to be understood as "I was sitting in the chair and then was watched by him" (sounds odd, but don't know how to write in other way) Am I right? – Lone Wanderer Feb 12 '17 at 07:09
  • Yes: with the comma, he is definitely sitting in the chair. Without the comma, it's a bit ambiguous, but it's most likely me sitting in the chair. Another way to write it would be "He watched me while I was sitting in the chair" - that sentence has no ambiguity either way because it has two very clear subject/verb relationships ("he watched" and "I was sitting"). – Matt Cline Feb 12 '17 at 22:22
  • An excellent example of how punctuation matters. – Teacher KSHuang Feb 22 '17 at 09:12
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    People you should put these down as answers – Chris M Mar 04 '17 at 08:38

2 Answers2

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Look at the following sentences:

"He watched me knowing that I would win." (He knew)

"He watched me playing football." (I kicked)

The context tells you the difference. You can watch what someone does but you cannot watch what someone is thinking/knowing because you cannot see inside their head.

chasly - supports Monica
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The examples seem confusion because of a small mistake you make. You try to analyze them starting from an arbitrary "middle" - in this case, the words "knowing" / "waiting".

To clarify things, you should analyze the sentence from subject and verb to the details.

Analysis of "He looked at me knowing that I would win."

he looked: Subject + verb

at me: refers to the verb "looked"

knowing that I would win: refers to the verb "looked"

From here you can analyze the inside of "knowing that I could win" in any way you want. However, it is already obvious why "knowing" is connected to "him" and "looked".

Analysis of "This is a picture of me waiting for the train."

this is: subject + verb

a picture of: refers to the verb "is"

me waiting in the train: refers to "picture"

Here, the entire sequence "me waiting in the train" refers to picture and acts as a whole. Compare the following:

  • This is a picture of (me waiting for the train).

  • This is a picture of (an apple).

If you analyze now the sequence "me waiting in the train" you will get the following:

me: refers to the picture (as in: This is a picture of me).

waiting (in the train): refers to "me" (as in: I am waiting in the train)

virolino
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