In his descriptions, novelist James Lee Burke often uses a particular sentence structure and I’d like to ask help in identifying the sentence components grammatically. I’ve read misc sources but end up confused about dependent/subordinate/modifying/etc terminology.
My question is about the bolded parts of below sentences [bolding not in original]. The bolded parts seem to follow what I think is an independent clause:
It was late on a Wednesday night in April when Danny Boy walked out into the desert with an empty duffel bag and an army-surplus entrenching tool, the sky as black as soot, the southern horizon pulsing with electricity that resembled gold wires, the softness of the ground crumbling under his cowboy boots, as though he were treading across the baked shell of an enormous riparian environment that had been layered and beveled and smoothed with a sculptor’s knife.
–Feast Day of Fools
It was dusk, the western sky ribbed with strips of orange cloud, the turn bridge on the bayou open for a barge.
–Crusader’s Cross
Outside, the night was unseasonably cool, scented with shade-blooming flowers, the giant live oaks along the sidewalks lit by streetlamps, Spanish moss lifting in the breeze.
–Crusader’s Cross
The air was breathless, the moon rising above the cypress into a magenta sky, the water so still you could hear the hyacinths popping open back in the trees.
–Crusader’s Cross
I associate the frequent “-ing” words with gerunds/participles and progressive verb tense…and do some of these phrases contain “implied verbs”? It’s as if the “was” in “The air was breathless” is “distributed” over the phrases that follow, such as:
The air was breathless, the moon [WAS] rising above the cypress into a magenta sky, the water [WAS] so still you could hear the hyacinths popping open back in the trees.
[QUOTE=the above]
It was late on a Wednesday night in April when Danny Boy walked out into the desert with an empty duffel bag and an army-surplus entrenching tool, the sky as black as soot, the southern horizon pulsing with electricity that resembled gold wires, the softness of the ground crumbling under his cowboy boots, as though he were treading across the baked shell of an enormous riparian environment that had been layered and beveled and smoothed with a sculptor’s knife.
–Feast Day of Fools
[/quote]
Jeezuz H Kee-Ryst! Not even Edward Bulwer-Lytton, for whom an annual wretched-writing contest is dedicated, could come up with shit that bad! :smack:
As to your “distributed verbs” idea, the construct you might be looking at is the zeugma, in which one verb applies to two different subjects, or in which two verbs apply to one subject – often with the common verb (or noun) needing to be taken with two different meanings for its two subjects, in order to make sense. Example: “He caught a fish and a cold.”
If you assume a preposition (‘with’) has been omitted, the constructions can be treated as simple prepositional phrases. That’s how I’d diagram them, writing an implicit “(with)” as the preposition.
The Wikipedia page for nominative absolute uses the Second Amendment as an example and adds a trivia item: Two commas (which may change the meaning slightly) were deleted between Congressional approval and states’ ratification. I guess the Second Amendment was never properly passed after all. :smack:
brianmelendez:
“The term that describes these constructions is a nominative absolute.”
Thank you! That’s it–gives me a handle allowing a search:
“In English grammar, a nominative absolute is a free-standing (absolute) part of a sentence that describes or modifies the main subject and verb. It is usually at the beginning or end of the sentence, although it can also appear in the middle. Its parallel is the ablative absolute in Latin, or the genitive absolute in Greek.”
And re my comment about “implied” verbs, Wiki says:
"One way to identify a nominative absolute is to add a verb; one can always create a sentence out of a nominative absolute by adding one verb (generally a form of to be).
Their manes flowing, the horses ran from the burning barn.
Nominative absolute: Their manes flowing.
With a verb added: Their manes were flowing.
Stephen, his mind taxed, searched frantically for a dictionary.
Nominative absolute: his mind taxed
With a verb added: His mind was taxed.
Similarly, one can break the absolute off, add a verb and make two sentences. For example, Stephen searched frantically for a dictionary. His mind was taxed."
xxx drewtwo99:
“Those sentences come off as grammatical nightmares to me, but I am not a grammarian. Are they really acceptable?”
Definitely–it’s an acceptable construction with a Latin pedigree [ablative absolute]. In the JLBurke examples, the sentences are clear–the nominative absolute phrases modify the preceding independent clause.
To me, a “grammatical nightmare” is a construction that’s hard to parse or understand [let alone diagram]–see the worst of Henry James.
