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CurrentEnglish ForumHAROLD B. ALLEN, ADELINE C. BARTLETT, MARGARET M. BRYANT (chairman)

ARCHIBALD A. HILL, JAMES B. MCMILLAN, KEMP MALONE, RUSSELL THOMAS

IN DEFENSE OF THE ABSOLUTEThis article will use the nominative ab-solute constructionas a measure of how farthe books that purport to teach us how touse ourlanguage,even some of the generally

good ones, have to go if their grammaticalinformation s to bearany useful relation torhetoric,if it is to be functional in the senseof functioningin the analysisand practiceofwriting. The nominative absolute construc-tion is a thoroughlyestablishedidiom,aboutof an age with the perfect and progressiveverbforms;it is neat and terse in expositorywritingand indispensable n descriptiveandnarrative writing; and yet it is almost uni-formly misrepresented and, as a conse-quenceof the misrepresentation,abused andcondemned.Here are some of the hard wordsappliedto the construction,arrangedand labeled toshow the particulars of the bill. Its origin:"un-English"(Sweet, A New EnglishGram-mar, Part II); "generally an alien air"(Fowler, TheKing's English); "not idiomat-ic" (Perrin,A Guideand Index to English).Its present level: "uncolloquial" (Sweet);"somewhatliterary" (Bryant, A FunctionalEnglishGrammar);"almostaltogethera lit-erary construction" (Kennedy, CurrentEnglish). Its grammatical character:"weak,""difficult o manage"(Ward,WhatIs English?); "a syntactical shortcut of asomewhat noncommittal sort" (Kennedy);several (Kennedy, Ward, and Pence, AGrammarof Present-Day English) regarditas a source of error,apparentlybecausetheyregard it as an introductory sentence ele-ment that may be confused with the par-ticiple and lead to dangling participles. Itsstylistic effect: "stiff" (Ward); "usually

awkward"(Perrin).Five of these books ad-monish us to avoid the construction.It is true that these writers, if grantedtheir examples,could make good their judg-ments. The troubleis that they would be de-

scribing the elephant by referenceonly tothe tail. In their confected examples theposition of the absolute construction s near-ly always before the governingclause, andthe grammaticalrelation implied is alwaystime, cause, condition, or concession. Thekey to the defense of the absolute is thatthese uses are all but negligible.The majoruse is to add detail to the sentence, whatgrammarians call "attendant circum-stances," but to which Curmeadds "man-ner" and Jespersen "descriptive details."For simplicity I would say that the majoruse is to add narrativedetails, picturinganaction ("Ellen watched herreceding,a largewoman,herskirtkickingoutin littlepointsatthe hem as she walked.""An owl sang in atree by a farm gate, his notes comingin aslow trill" [E. M. Roberts]);descriptivede-tails, static rather than active, picturing ap-pearanceratherthan action ("Hereyes werequite wide,almostblack, the amplighton herface and thetiny reflectionsof his face in herpupils like peas in two inkwells" [Faulk-ner]);and, I think one has to add, explana-tory details ("To yoke me as his yokefellow,our crimes our common cause" [Joyce]).Sometimes the absolute construction is in-troduced by the preposition with, here anempty form word("The bull, with his tongueout, his barrel heaving, was watching thegypsy" [Hemingway]).In these uses the ab-solute nearly always follows the governingclause,fillingin detailsof the action, picture,

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COLLEGE ENGLISHor statement which the governing clausemerely blocks out in general terms.Curme says that it is "a terse and con-venient construction for all practical pur-poses." The type with with (He sat at thetable, with collar off, etc.) he calls "nativeEnglish." It was, he says, "common in OldEnglish and the older stages of all the Ger-manic languages and is still everywhereincommonuse." Poutsmaconcurs in this eval-uation of the type with with: "frequentlymet with, also in ordinary spoken lan-guage."But if writers of textbooks do not attendto scholarship, they must readfiction, and afew pages from almost any piece of modernnarrativewritingwouldprovidedata for de-terminingthe presentstatus of the construc-tion. For further illustration I have takenthe four novels and stories from which Ihave just cited examples.In i80 pages thereare, by my count, 44o absolute construc-tions, very close to 2 to the page, with asmany as o1 or ii to a single page and asmany as 5 in series n a singlesentence.Theyrange in frequency from 88 in the first 50pagesof Ulysses("ModernLibrary"),I26 inthe first 50 of Roberts' The Time of Man(Viking), 79in the 30 pagesof Hemingway'sThe Undefeated"ModernLibrary"),to I46in the first 50 of Faulkner'sSanctuary(Pen-guin). This makes an average per page of1.8, 2.5, 2.6, and 2.9.Of the 440, only I, indicating time, can-not be broughtreadily underthe categoriesof narrative, descriptive, and explanatorydetails. Only 9 stand before the governingclause. Several come within it. Five abso-lutes are punctuated as sentences in Hem-ingway, 20 in Joyce, and 29 in Roberts. InHemingwayandJoyce they usuallyfunctionas narrative sentences, but a few in Joyceare used for a kind of lyric refrain("A tidewestering,moondrawn, n her wake").As to the grammatical character of theconstructionitself, the commondescriptionsare not quite accurate. It regularlyconsistsof two parts, a subject and a predicate,eitherof whichmay be compound.The sub-ject is usually a noun ratherthan a pronoun

and therefore shows no case form. If a pro-noun, it is usually nominative in standardEnglish, though I have seen the accusativein Hemingway.The predicatedoes not nec-essarily involve a participle. If there is averb, it may be a participle,presentorpast,with or without complements,or it may-thoughthis is rare-be an infinitive("Mean-while the cardinal is in jail, the sentence tobe pronouncedomorrow"[LowellThomas,February 7, I949]). Wherethere is no verb(anda verb is not to be thought of as "miss-ing" orto be "supplied"),the predicate maybe a noun ("As the bull lowered his head tohook, Fuentes leaned backward, his armscame together and rose, his two handstouching,the banderillos wo reddescendinglines" [Hemingway]);a pronoun ("They atethe food in silence,the only soundthatof theclickingknives and sweepingspoons"[Rob-erts,p. 64]);an adjectiveoradverb("... thehorsefacingthe bull, its earsforward, ts lipsnervous . ." [Hemingway]);a prepositionalphrase("Zuritosat there,his feet in thebox-stirrups..." [Hemingway]);or a compari-son with like ("Across the child Templegazed at the woman'sback, her face like asmall pale mask beneath heprecarioushat"[Faulkner]).The loose way in whichthe absolute con-struction is related to the rest of the sen-tence, instead of being a weakness,as Ken-nedy seems to feel, is one of its advantages,especially in descriptive-narrativewriting.In modern English the typical sentence inthis kind of writingis cumulative, the mainclausemerelya base to which to attach, notsubordinate clauses with precise conjunc-tions, but loosely relatedappositives,prepo-sitional phrases, participles, and absolutes.A second advantage of the absolute is thatit requiresno verb,alwaysan asset whenthesense calls for nothing more than a copula.A third is that it has a subject of its own,whereasthe participle,with which it sharesthe main burden of carrying details, musttake its subject fromthe governingelement.The advantage of being able to notice theparts separatelyfrom the whole can be seen

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CURRENT ENGLISH FORUMin a sentence suchas this: "Shejumpedfromher seat and ran up the banks of the ravine,terrified,clutching at the brush, dry stonesrattlingback n herpath" (Roberts).So far I have offered only isolated sen-tences. To illustrate the construction incontext one could use a passagethat GeorgeMayberrychose for analysis (New Republic,CX [MayI, I944],608)becauseof the"clean-limbed functional quality of the prose"-prose, he says, "that superbly fulfills itsfunction; here of renderingthe color, pag-eantry, and above all the movement of acircusperformanceas it worksupon a boy'simagination." The boy is Huck Finn, andthe book is the fountainhead of the colloqui-al tradition in American literature.

It was a realbullycircus.It was the splen-didestsight that everwas whenthey all coMERIDING IN, two and two, and gentleman andlady, sideby side,themen ust in theirdrawersandundershirts,nd no shoesnorstirrups,andresting heirhandsontheir highseasyand com-fortable-theremust'a' beentwentyof them-

and every ady with a lovely complexion,and per-fectly beautiful, and looking just like a gang ofreal sure-enoughqueens, and dressedin clothesthatcost millions of dollars,andjust litteredwithdiamonds.t wasa powerfulinesight;I neversee anythingso lovely. And then one by onethey got up and stood, and WENTA-WEAVINGaround he ringso gentleandwavyandgrace-ful, the men looking ever so tall and airy andstraight,with their heads bobbingand skimmingalong away up thereunder thetent-roof,and everylady's rose-leafy dress flapping soft and silkyaround her hips, and she looking like the mostloveliestparasol.And then faster and faster they WENT,all ofthemdancing,first onefootstuckout in theair andthen the other,the horsesleaning moreand more,and the ringmaster going round and round thecenter pole, cracking his whip and shouting"Hil-hil" and the clown cracking okes behindhim,andby andby allhandsdroppedhe reinsandevery adyputherknuckles n herhipsandeverygentlemanoldedhisarms,and then howthe horsesdidleanoverandhumpthemselves

FRANCIS CHRISTENSENUNIVERSITYOr SOUTHERNCALIFORNIA

Y1hat's he Answer?ProfessorJames Conant of Harvard has suggested that these tests beapplied to our public schools. Doubtless he thinks they could also be ap-plied to our colleges."Arethe students df high intellectual ability being identified,are they

being stimulated, are they being guided into properchannels?"Are the boys and girls with artistic gifts, musical or in the graphicarts, being given an opportunity to develop these talents?"Are the students who do not fall into either of the preceding cate-gories (and they are by far the greatest number) being provided with aprogram which keeps their interest high?"Does the education seem to them and their parents relevant to theirambitions and their needs?"

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