what is a participial phrase?
Participial Phrases. Participial phrases are short phrases that appear at the beginning of a sentence or the end of the sentence. These participial phrases should always be set off from the main clause with a comma. The action that is occurring in these participial phrases should relate back to the subject. That is, the subject of the sentence should be doing the action. If this is not the case, the result is a dangling modifier. There are two basic types of participial phrases.