To the native speakers (language question)

[google98]

Hey,

I'm just wondering whether the following sentence is grammatically correct (I'm a non-native speaker):

"They'll have to catch me and pull me back kicking and screaming." (Amanda Knox on the possibility of being brought back to Italy in case of being proven guilty)

What she obviously wants to say is that SHE will be kicking and screaming; however, I thought that such participles always refer back to the SUBJECT of the sentence, in this case THEY/POLICE/...

Am I wrong?

[Foxpup]

There is no such rule in English grammar, and that sentence is indeed grammatically correct. A participle acting as an adjectival phrase modifies the noun immediately preceding or following it (in this case "me") exactly like a regular adjective, even if that noun is the object of another verb. Perhaps some confusion arises from the fact that the noun phrase "me kicking and screaming" is split by the phrasal verb "pull back"; the sentence could also be phrased, "They'll have to pull me kicking and screaming back", but nobody actually talks like that.

[hilariousandco]

Yeah, her sentence seems fine. I think you're looking too much into this  .

[google98]

There is no such rule in English grammar, and that sentence is indeed grammatically correct. A participle acting as an adjectival phrase modifies the noun immediately preceding or following it (in this case "me") exactly like a regular adjective, even if that noun is the object of another verb. Perhaps some confusion arises from the fact that the noun phrase "me kicking and screaming" is split by the phrasal verb "pull back"; the sentence could also be phrased, "They'll have to pull me kicking and screaming back", but nobody actually talks like that.

What I meant is this:

http://books.google.de/books?id=r0TI_5nfMboC&pg=PA190&lpg=PA190&dq=participles+%22same+subject%22&source=bl&ots=C-S6FRaZK5&sig=YvjdL8XyIcuR91PeYIrwG2KsuuA&hl=de&sa=X&ei=TCXtUuzfOaar7Abur4HYDQ&ved=0CFQQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=participles%20%22same%20subject%22&f=false

There is a difference between the following sentences because the subject is different, isn't it?

I talked to my mum wearing a T-Shirt (it's me who's wearing the T-Shirt, not my mum)

and

Wearing a T-Shirt, my mum talked to me.

Edit: I guess it must have something to do with the function of the participle: If it's a replaced relative clause, it works. If it's a replaced temporal clause (while...), it doesn't ?!

[Foxpup]

I don't know what that book says, but in this example, "wearing a T-shirt" is an adverbial phrase (modifying "talked"), and does not modify the subject (though the subject is described by the verb, and by extension, the adverb). Nouns are only modified by adjectives. Though the present participle may be used as an adjective, adverb, or a regular progressive verb, and the present active gerund has the same verb form but is a distinct tense, which may be confusing.

EDIT: Another possible source of confusion is that "wearing a T-shirt" doesn't really change the meaning of the verb "talked" ("using a megaphone" would be a better example of an adverbial phrase using the present participle), so the sentence is perhaps badly constructed in that respect.