Hi! It’s konkaz (@konkazuk) here.
With this blog post, we are going to inspect an “absolute construction” and some idiomatic expressions that are relevant to it.
An “absolute construction” is the final barrier to breakthrough for conquering an area of participle clause… We are almost there!
What is an “Absolute Construction”?
While a general “participle clause” has got the same subject as the one that appears in the main clause within a sentence,
an “absolute construction” is…
the circumstance of a clause whose subject is different from the one in the main clause in a sentence.
I guess the explanation above is not clear enough to give you a good picture of what it is, so let’s compare the sentence of general “participle clause” with that of “absolute construction.”
① Arriving at the theatre fairly late, he had to stand to watch throughout the play.
② Arriving at the theatre fairly late, there were no seats left for him.
If we revert the form of participle clause, which is the first part of the sentence, to a normal form of clause with conjunctions such as Because, As or Since, it will be…
Because he arrived at the theatre fairly late, …
and you can see that the subject is “he” with this clause.
Hence, if you look at the sentence ①, you see that its subject “he” matches up with the one in the main clause, therefore we can simply call it as a “participle caluse”.
On the other hand, the subject of the main clause in the sentence ② is “seats”, and because the subject of the 1st clause is not linked to the one in the main clause, it is called an “absolute construction”.
Rather than taking a “Participle Clause” and an “Absolute Construction” as separate things, take them just like.. among the “participle clauses” that are transformed from a general form of clause in order to avoid using the subject twice within a sentence, there is a type called “absolute construction” because its subject does not correspond to the one in main clause despite the fact that both clauses are linked thematically.
By the way, according to Wikipedia, the term “absolute” derives from Latin “absolūtum”, which means “loosened from” or “separated”.
Regarding the basics of “Participle Clause”, the explanation is being made with several example sentences in《Eigo-jiru vol.23》, so please have a look if you are interested.
How to create sentences with an “Absolute Construction”
As a matter of principle, imagine a simple sentence whose first clause and second (last) clause have non-identical subjects (however clauses are thematically linked).
Remember the part that can be transformed into participle clause needs to have a conjunction.
① Present Participle
Right. Let’s make an investigation into this simple sentence, which is…
Because the weather is so nice today, I feel good.
You can see that the first clause’s subject is “the weather”, while the main clause has “I”.
And what we are going to do here is to remove a conjunction and transform a verb into the form of present participle with the 1st clause, just like…
Because the weather is so nice today, I feel good.
👉 The Weather being so nice today, I feel good.
This is it.
Because the subject in the 1st clause that is going to be transformed into a participle clause is different form the one in the main clause,
we need to keep the subject (not to be removed from the clause)
so that it will make sense as a sentence.
② Past Participle (passive form)
We are going to have a look at the case of “passive form”.
Let’s say we’ve come up with a sentence such as…
Though my jacket is worn out, I love this.
(The Subject in the 1st half of the sentence is “my jacket”, and the one in the main clause is “I”)
And like last time, we remove a conjunction and change a verb into the form of present participle with the 1st clause…
Though my jacket is worn out, I love this.
👉 My Jacket being worn out, I love this.
And remember that present participle “being” is generally omitted from the participle clause with passive form, so it will be completed as…
👉 My jacket worn out, I love this.
③ Perfect Participle
“Perfect Participle Clause” that starts with the shape of “Having + past participle” is formed when…
The tense of (not always but mainly) the 1st clause that is to be transformed into participle clause is older than that of main clause.
Let’s say we have come up with a sentence like below.
As the fox has disappeared from the scene, the rabbit came out from the hole.
Like how we did last time, we remove a conjunction and this time, change a verb into the form of “Having + past participle) with the 1st clause…
As the fox has disappeared from the scene, the rabbit came out from the hole.
👉 The fox having disappeared from the scene, the rabbit came out from the hole.
④ Negative form
Now, have a look at the sentence with negative form below…
Because the door wasn’t locked, we were able to go inside.
The sentence has got a passive form, therefore as how we did with ②, we get rid of a conjunction and change a verb into the form of present participle with the 1st clause…
Because the door wasn’t locked, we were able to go inside.
👉 The door being not locked, we were able to go inside.
…and omit the present participle “being” from the 1st clause as it is typically carried out when passive form of participle clause is formed.
Therefore it will be like…
👉 The door not locked, we were able to go inside.
Thus, the negative form of an “absolute construction” will have the following structure…
“subject + not + participle”
Placing “Not” before a subject is not the correct order, so be careful!
⑤ An absolute construction with “with”
Here, we are going to have a look at the situation where two things are going on at the same time…
Here is an example sentence.
She is listening to music, as her eyes are closed.
In this case, you can see that a conjunction is included in the 2nd clause, therefore the 1st half of the sentence will be the main clause.
Anyway, let’s work on this…
First, we remove a conjunction and transform a verb into the form of present participle with the 2nd clause, and it will be…
(as it is a passive form, present participle “being” is to be removed, too.)
She is listening to music, as her eyes are closed.
👉 She is listening to music, her eyes closed.
There is the fact that the subject in the main clause “She” is different from the one in the 2nd clause “her eyes”, however, “her eyes” belongs to the subject of the main clause, hence we can apply “with” before “her eyes” in this case…
👉 She is listening to music with her eyes closed.
While the subject in a secondary clause is a part of the subject in the main clause, we can express it with “with” like below.
“with + a part of the subject in the main clause + the situation of a part of the subject (participle)”
⑥ Sentences starting with “There is (are) 〜”
Since the sentences that start with “There is (are)” have got a different appearance from normal sentences that start with the subjects such as (He is 〜, They play 〜, etc.), some people might find it confusing.
So, we’ll have a look at this case, too.
Here is an example sentence.
Because there was no milk in the fridge, I had to go to the corner shop to get one.
In order to create a sentence with participle clause, we get rid of a conjunction “Because” (but keeping “there” just like we keep the subject normally) and transform a verb into the form of present participle in the 1st clause.
So, it will be…
Because there was no milk in the fridge, I had to go to the corner shop to get one.
👉 There being no milk in the fridge, I had to go to the corner shop to get one.
Since the sentence here is negative, you might get mixed up with the structure of “subject + not + participle” which we have learnt in ④ Negative form, but remember the sentence we had dealt with in ④ had a passive form, hence the present participle “being” was omitted there, just in case…
Idiomatic expressions
An absolute construction parts of the examples below are well established as idiomatic expressions, therefore you can use them as they are without getting bothered by the matters of subjects in the sentence.
It is said that sentences with participle clause are rarely used in our daily conversations, however, the fact is that these idiomatic expressions are frequently used, therefore it will be greatly useful for you to learn them.
① Considering 〜,
Considering his age, the fact that he can play the piano with that level is quite amazing.
② [Strictly/Generally/Frankly] speaking,
Strictly speaking, he doesn’t completely agree with her opinion.
③ Judging from 〜,
Judging from her smile, I guess she’s passed the exam.
④ Speaking of 〜,
Speaking of your dad, has he already retired?
⑤ Taking 〜 into account / consideration
Taking everything into account, I think this washing machine has got a reasonable price.
Summary
An “absolute construction” has been explained in this article.
To summarise the points of the content in this blog post…
- The subject in a secondary clause is different from the one in main clause with an absolute construction.
- Because the subject in a secondary clause is different from the one in the main clause with an absolute construction, the subject in a secondary clause is kept un-removed in order to avoid confusion.
- The structure of negative sentences with an absolute constructions is “subject + not + participle”,
- While the subject in a secondary clause is a part of the subject in the main clause, we can express it as “with + a part of the subject in the main clause + the situation of a part of the subject (participle)”
- Idiomatic expressions of an absolute construction are frequently used in our daily conversations, therefore it will be useful for you to learn them.
Well, that’s all.
I hope you have found the explanations of an absolute construction in this article helpful.
konkaz