Modifier

[AsadA969]

I was pretending to be mute, learning about your inner secrets.

I was learning about your inner secrets, pretending to be mute.

Actually, I am unable to find out the correct sentence. Could you please help me to detect the correct one?
Thanks

[StaceyKoprince]

I will, but please note for future that a grammar question should be posted in the General Verbal folder. This folder is for study strategy-type questions.

I'll give a short answer here, but please post in the General Verbal folder if you want to have a longer discussion about this topic.

I think you are trying to get at the question of how "comma -ing" modifiers work. In general, a "comma -ing" modifier modifies the main clause that it is attached to. For example:

She grabbed the hot pan, burning her hand in the process.

", burning her hand" modifies "she grabbed the hot pan."

Further, comma -ing modifiers imply a "follow on" relationship - typically cause-effect. Burning her hand was a consequence of grabbing the hot pan.

The "follow-on" relationship always applies from left to right. So I could re-write the sentence to say:
Grabbing the hot pan, she burned her hand.

She grabs the pan, and as a result she burns her hand.

You can't say:
Burning her hand, she grabbed the hot pan.

This implies that burns her hand and, as a result, grabs the pan. That meaning is nonsensical.

The Modifiers chapter of our SC Strategy Guide gets into much more detail on this topic, but those are the basics for a comma -ing modifier.

Of the two sentences you gave, I would write the first one as: I was pretending to be mute in order to learn about your inner secrets. You could potentially leave it as you wrote it, but I think the way I just wrote it would be more common.

The second one, though, doesn't work - it isn't the case that I was learning about your secrets and as a result of that, I pretended to be mute.

[AsadA969]

Thanks but sorry to post it in wrong folder.

[StaceyKoprince]

No worries - just make sure to do so next time

[AsadA969]

Sure...

[StaceyKoprince]

Thanks!