The absolute construction

Another type of secondary predication may be seen in the so-called absolute construction. This appears, for instance, in the following example: She was prepared, the situation already falling gracefully into place about her, to consider it. Here the phrase the situation already falling gracefully into place about her constitutes an absolute construction. The absolute construction is of course a case of secondary predication, or, in Jespersen's terminology, a nexus. The participle falling, which denotes an action performed by the thing denoted by the noun situation, is not a predicate, and situation is not the subject either of a sentence or of a clause. This is evidence that the predication contained in the phrase is a secondary one.

Participles seem to be the most widely used types of predicative element in the absolute construction. We find them, for example, in the following sentences. The preliminary greetings spoken, Denis found an empty chair between Gombauld and Jenny and sat down.

The absolute construction expresses what is usually called accompanying circumstances — something that happens alongside of the main action. This secondary action may be the cause of the main action, or its condition, etc., but these relations are not indicated by any grammatical means. The position of the absolute construction before or after the main body of the sentence gives only a partial clue to its concrete meaning. Thus, for example, if the construction denotes some secondary action which accompanies the main one without being either its cause or its condition, it always follows the main body of the sentence; if the construction indicates the cause, or condition, or time of the main action, it can come both before and after the main body of the sentence.

Thus the grammatical factor plays only a subordinate part in determining the sense relations between the absolute construction and the main body of the sentence.

The stylistic colouring of the absolute construction should also be noted. It is quite different in this respect from the constructions with the objective predicative, which may occur in any sort of style. The absolute construction is, as we have seen, basically a feature of literary style and unfit for colloquial speech. Only a few more or less settled formulas such as weather permitting may be found in ordinary conversation. Otherwise colloquial speech practically always has subordinate clauses where literary style may have absolute constructions.

A participle is by no means a necessary component of an absolute construction. The construction can also consist of a noun and some other word or phrase, whose predicative relation to the noun is made clear by the context. Here are a few examples: Bone stood in a patch of sunlight on the gray carpet, his hands behind him, his face in shadow. This example is characteristic in so far as the subject of the sentence is a noun denoting a human being, the predicate group tells of his position in space, and the subjects of the two absolute constructions are nouns denoting parts of his body (his hands and his face), while the predicative parts of the constructions describe the position of these parts (behind him and in the shadow).

In a few minutes she returned, her eyes shining, her hair still damp. The entire question of whom one loved, he continued, Emma looking up from her work for the first time as she listened, seemed to him of relative unimportance. It should also be noted that there is a subordinate clause (of) whom one loved belonging to the subject group, and another subordinate clause, as she listened, belonging to the absolute construction, so that the number of elements separating the predicate of the main clause (seemed to be...) from its subject (the... question) is quite considerable. However, no misunderstanding can arise here, though there are three finite verb forms (loved, continued, and listened) intervening between the subject question and its predicate seemed... This is due to the fact that each of these three finite verb forms is closely connected with Its own subject (in every case a pronoun immediately preceding it), namely, one loved, he continued, she listened. Besides, it should be noted that neither loved nor listened would have made any sense in connection with the subject question, and as to the verb continued, it might be connected with the subject question only if the verb were followed by an infinitive of appropriate meaning, e. g. the question continued to worry him. As it is, continued here means 'continued to speak', which can only be connected with a subject representing a human being.

One more remark about the absolute construction is necessary here. It concerns the semantic ties between the absolute construction and the rest of the sentence. For example, we can say that in the sentence She had hoped that the war being over, life would gradually resume its old face the relations between the construction and the rest of the sentence are causal: we can say that the absolute construction is here a loose adverbial modifier of cause. On the other hand, in the sentence Weather permitting, we shall start on an excursion the relations between the construction and the rest of the sentence are those of condition, and the absolute construction may be said to be a loose adverbial modifier of condition. But now the question is, how do we know that it is cause in one example, and condition in the other? This is not expressed by any grammatical means and it only follows from the lexical meanings of the words and the general meaning of the sentence. What is expressed by grammatical means is merely the subordinate position of the absolute construction.

Such, then, are the syntactical phenomena which occupy a place somewhere between the simple and the composite sentence and which may therefore be considered as a kind of stepping stone from the one to the other.

Glossary of linguistic terms:

1. composite – сложное предложение

2. homogenious parts – однородные члены

3. secondary predication – вторичная предикация

4. dependent appendix – приложение с определяемыми словами

5. absolute construction – оборот

6. nexus – соединение слов и словосочетаний, имеющих отношения предикации

7. junction – соединение слов и словосочетаний без предикативных отношений

Additional reading:

1. стр. 254-264

2. стр. 213-227

3. стр. 183-193