He was walking off with my attache case filled with LV's winnings.
The reference at my hand says that this sentence should be rewritten; He was walking off with my attache case which was filled with LV's winnings. Because the past participle "filled" is unclear which it modifies "case" or "he". The explanation is understandable, but at the same time it gives me a question; If it is true, the chance we can use participles is very limited. Please tell me what you think. By the way, the reference book Grammar Bible is written for native English speakers.The question was misleading. The original sentence is,
He was walking off with my attache case filled with LV's winnings.
And the book suggest us to rewrite to,
He was walking off with my attache case which was filled with LV's winnings.
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Answers · 3
1
Hmm... interesting question! I don't know what reference "bible" you are reading, but the sentence seems perfectly well-formed to me. There is no reason to believe the dependent clause "which was filled with LV's winnings" should modify "he" rather than "case," for two reasons:
(1) Grammatically speaking, a modifier should be as close as possible to the object it modifies. "Case" is much closer to "which was filled ..." than to "he."
(2) Secondly, as a matter of logic, it is much more likely that a CASE rather than a PERSON would be "filled with winnings."
If anything, I would only add a comma (",") before "which" :
He was walking off with my attache case, which was filled with LV's winnings
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