I hit post too soon, again:
WMC: A participle is one of a class of verb forms known as "verbals, " derived from verbs. A dangling participle is an error in sentence structure whereby a grammatical modifier is associated with a word other than the one intended, or with no particular word at all. For example: Walking back home yesterday, a tree nearly fell on my head. When logic is applied to that sentence, it should mean that the tree was walking back home: the subject of the main clause of a sentence (the tree) is assumed to be the subject of a phrase attached to the main clause. I'm hope that clarifies the matter to your satisfaction.