In the sentence The trainer, armed with a whip, entered the cage. I think I have it right, but am not sure. I have entered as the participle, armed with a whip as the modifier and no object of the participle. Is this correct?
Yes, you are correct! In the sentence "The trainer, armed with a whip, entered the cage," "entered" is the participle, "armed with a whip" is the modifier, and there is no object of the participle.
To determine the participle in a sentence, you can look for a verb form that ends in -ed, -en, or -ing. In this case, "entered" is the past participle of the verb "enter."
The participle "entered" is used as a modifier to provide additional information about the subject "the trainer." The modifier "armed with a whip" tells us how the trainer is entering the cage.
You correctly identified that there is no object of the participle in this sentence. An object of a participle is a noun or a pronoun that receives the action of the verb expressed by the participle. In this case, the participle is not directly acting upon any specific object in the sentence; it simply adds information about the subject.
Well done on your analysis!