We asked eight of the toughest men we knew, all of them serving ten straight years in prison.

This is a sentence I extracted from a famous author, Gregory Roberts.

Would you say this is an absolute phrase? It has the properties of one, but does it modify the whole clause?

I suppose this could be re-written in the form of a subordinate clause: “...all of whom were serving ten…”

Also, if you are writing a sentence and want to include phrases that prevent flow and are therefore free modifiers, what rules prevent their being in the sentence, other than dangling, squinting and misplaced modifiers?

Thanks

We asked eight of the toughest men we knew, all of them serving ten straight years in prison.

I would be inclined to call this an adjective phrase modifying “men” (reduced from “all of them were serving…”).

I suppose this could be re-written in the form of a subordinate clause: “...all of whom were serving ten…”

“...all of whom were serving…” would still be a phrase, not a subordinate clause, and would still modify “men.” The “all” makes both the original and the rewritten versions phrases.

Not sure I understand your last question. The obvious answer is “the rules of grammar,” but you have to have a sentence to judge which rules apply.

Hi.

‘all of whom’ I don’t see how this is a phrase and not a dependent/relative clause. I’ll make another example:

I owned books on every topic imaginable, all of which were haphazardly placed on my oak bookshelf in the room I seldom use.

I feel that this too is a dependent, relative clause. It’s essentiatlly the same as “which werre haphazardly placed, but ‘all of’ just provides more detail as to what is being described: all of them are being described.

I owned many fiction books, two of which have been a favourite of mine for too long to remember.

This one appears to me to be a dependent relative clause too; ‘two of” is used to show the relative clause is only describing two of the fiction books.

Could you explain why you see this as a phrase?

Also, I suppose its how you look at the absolute phrase, or what you see as an adjective phrase: if you name it based on its function, then it does appear to be adjectival modifying ‘men.’ However, if you were to look at its structure, it seems to be more absolute: Noun + (No Main Verb) Phrase (often ing).

Thanks.

Sorry for the confusion. I have a toothache and shouldn’t be thinking. much less writing.

I still think the phrase in sentence one and the clause in sentence two are adjective. I might change my mind tomorrow after my appointment with the dentist.

I agree with saparris that the phrase in question is an adjective phrase, not an absolute phrase.

saparris - 01 June 2009 03:54 PM

“...all of whom were serving…” would still be a phrase, not a subordinate clause, and would still modify “men.” The “all” makes both the original and the rewritten versions phrases.

I disagree here; I think it’s a subordinate clause, equivalent to “of whom all were serving”.  If it were a phrase, there would be a comma splice.

I caught my error and have disagreed with myself. Is was late, I was tired, and I had a toothache. I claim temporary grammatical insanity.

Thanks guys. For some reason I don’t receive emails when you post replys to me anymore… So sorry for the delay.

ACB,

of whom all were serving

If it is equivalent to this, why would you need ‘of’: who were all serving

I thought of was only needed because we used ‘all’ So it is a sort of phrase: ‘all of’ ‘two of’ ‘three of’ etc

Cheers

Nobody is receiving emails. Must be a technical problem.

I would be inclined to call this an adjective phrase modifying “men” (reduced from “all of the were serving…”).

Hi, Sapparis. This comment of yours made me think of the unanswerable question I asked on another post titled ‘Random but important question.’

You state that this is simply an adjective phrase with the main verb omitted. Why can this omittion occur? When can this not occur?

Also, I recently read an article discussing absolute phrases, which may sway your thinking on the first question of this post: is this an aboslute phrase? We asked eight of the toughest men we knew, all of them serving ten straight years in prison.

“The absolute usually consists of a noun, a participle, and other words ‘completing predication. Christensen asserts
that the writer uses the absolute to select aspects of the subject, or of another
dominant element in the preceding main clause, for additional specific treatment.”

He doesn’t state that it needs to modify the entire adjacent clause… So couldn’t ‘all’ be the dominant element this writer wishes to add specific detail to.

Just a thought for you to ponder. But I certainly see why you state it is not absolute. But I thought you may have an opinion on this.

Cheers

Eddie88 - 07 June 2009 05:19 PM

ACB,

of whom all were serving

If it is equivalent to this, why would you need ‘of’: who were all serving

I thought of was only needed because we used ‘all’ So it is a sort of phrase: ‘all of’ ‘two of’ ‘three of’ etc

“Who were all serving” would do just as well, but your sentence said “all of whom”, which is equivalent to “of whom all”.  Wherever you put the “all”, it is a relative clause, not a phrase, because ‘who’ and ‘whom’ (other than in questions) are relative pronouns.  Also, as I said, if it were a phrase, we would have a comma splice.

You are right that ‘all’ and ‘of’ form a kind of unit, but that does not mean they have to be adjacent.  Just as we can say “Of them, all were….”, we can say “of whom all were”.

Thanks, ACB.

I understand that it is a relative clause, and I understand that it would be a comma splice if I didn’t follow your recommendation.

Just as we can say “Of them, all were….”, we can say “of whom all were”.

Thanks. I wouldn’t have thought of it being correct to construct it this way. But now that I read it, it does.

Also, as I said, if it were a phrase, we would have a comma splice

Did you mean clause instead of phrase? Comma splice is two main clause joined by a comma, as you know.

Eddie88 - 07 June 2009 11:22 PM

“The absolute usually consists of a noun, a participle, and other words ‘completing predication. Christensen asserts
that the writer uses the absolute to select aspects of the subject, or of another
dominant element in the preceding main clause, for additional specific treatment.”

As, for example, in:

“I wrote down CAT, this being the first word that came to mind.”

It seems reasonable to call this absolute.  To call it adjectival, one would have to interpret it as “CAT was being the first word”, which would be unnatural.  In your sentence, however, “all of them were serving” is a perfectly natural interpretation, so “all of them serving….” is most simply described as an adjective phrase.

ACB is right that “all of whom….” is a relative clause and, therefore, not an absolute phrase.

I don’t know how long the concept of absolutes phrases and reduced clauses has been around. I suspect the reduced clause is post-Chomsky, because it is essentially a transformation of a clause to phrase. When I was srudying grammar in public school, we didn’t take up absolutes and reduced clauses. We also called subject complements predicate nominatives (I think).

When I studied linguistics in college, the names changed with the various grammatical theories we studied.

All of this is to say that you can swim across a river, paddle across a river, or catapult yourself across a river. Whichever way you choose, you still get to the other side.

Understanding the rules of grammar often requires one to ask, “Which ones?”

however, “all of them were serving” is a perfectly natural interpretation, so “all of them serving….” is most simply described as an adjective phrase.

Yeah, I can understand why it is an adjective phrase…

Is there rules governing the omission of the main verb? What I mean is, when I write, can I simply omit the main verb so that it is now a phrase, and therefore attach it to a main clause.

This phrase above makes me think I can:

I (was) thinking I should go home, I wanted dinner, all my parents (were) drinking in the living room.

This would generally be three main clauses that cannot be joined by a comma. But I’ve omitted the main verbs so they can be joined together.

Obviously this is ungrammatical, but why can this omission not occur, but it can in the sentence being discussed. (I think it is because the omission needs to create a phrase that functions as a part of speech, whereas these do not. Is this correct?).

Sorry for going off topic. But I’d love to hear what you both think about this.

Cheers

Eddie88 - 08 June 2009 05:30 PM

Did you mean clause instead of phrase? Comma splice is two main clause joined by a comma, as you know.

Yes.  I was following the terminology of saparris’s post #1 above, but yes, I meant ‘clause’ - we would have a second main clause.