The storks circled high above us

The problem of absolute constructions without participle is, according to many theoretical linguists, one of the most controversial in the theoretical grammar of the English language. Here, the opinions of scientists are so contradictory that information about this grammatical phenomenon was not even included in the official publications of the theoretical grammar of the English language, accepted for study in higher or secondary educational institutions. On the issue of absolute constructions without participle, starting from the last century, such luminaries in the field of theoretical grammar as L. S. Barkhudarov et al. [2], M. Ya. Bloch [4], V. G. Gak [6] expressed their opinion ], I. R. Galperin [7], L. Elmslev [10], A. I. Smirnitsky [15], R. Quirk et al. [23], and many other scientists.
An absolute constructions without participle is a group of words that modifies an independent as a whole. Its etymology is from the Latin: “free, loosen, unrestricted”.
An absolute constructions without participle is made up of a noun and its modifiers (which frequently, but not always, include a participle or participal phrase). An absolute constructions without participle may precede, follow, or interrupt the main clause:
Their slender bodies sleek and black against the orange sky, the storks circled high above us.
The storks circled high above us, their slender bodies sleek and black against the orange sky.
The storks, their slender bodies sleek and black against the orange sky, circled high above us.
An absolute constructions without participle allows us to move from a description of a whole person, place, or thing to one aspect or part. Note that in traditional grammar, absolute constructions without participle (or nominative absolute constructions without participle are often more narrowly defined as “noun phrases combined with participles” or “when a participle and the noun that comes before it together forms an independent phrase”. The term absolute constructions without participle (borrowed from Latin grammar) is rarely used by contemporary linguists. It is the art of language. Usually used in drama, poetry and novels.
The absolute constructions without participle that adds a focusing detail is especially common in fiction writing, much more common than in expository writing. In the following passages, all from works of fiction, some have a participle as the post-noun modifier; however, you'll also see some with noun phrases, others with prepositional phrases.
“There was no bus in sight and Julian, his hands still jammed in his pockets and his head thrust forward, scowled down the empty street.”
“Silently they ambled down Tenth Street until they reached a stone bench that jutted from the sidewalk near the curb. They stopped there and sat down, their backs to the eyes of the two men in white smocks who were watching them.”
“The man stood laughing, his weapons at his hips.”
“To his right the valley continued in its sleepy beauty, mute and understated, its wildest autumn colors blunted by the distance, placid as water color by an artist who mixed all his colors with brown.”
A second style of absolute constructions (without participle), rather than focusing on a detail, explains a cause or condition:
Our car having developed engine trouble, we stopped for the night at a roadside rest area. We decided to have our picnic, the weather being warm and clear.
The first example could be rewritten as a because- or when- clause:
When our car developed engine trouble, we stopped… or Because our car developed engine trouble, we stopped...
The absolute constructions without participle allows the writer to include the information without the explicitness of the complete clause; the absolute constructions without participle, then, can be thought of as containing both meanings, both when and because. The absolute constructions without participle about the weather in the second example suggests an attendant condition rather than a cause." (Martha Kolln, Rhetorical Grammar: Grammatical Choices, Rhetorical Effects, 5th ed. Pearson, 2007)
Nominative absolute constructions without participle are related to nonfinite verb phrases. They consist of a subject noun phrase followed by some part of the predicate: either a participle form of the main verb or a complement or modifier of the main verb. Complements and modifiers may take almost any form.
“Absolute constructions without participle have traditionally been called nominative because the absolute constructions without participle begins with a noun phrase as its headword. Nevertheless, they function adverbially as sentence modifiers. Some a absolute constructions (without participle) explain reasons or conditions for the action described in the main clause; others describe the manner in which the action of the main clause is performed." (Thomas P. Klammer, Muriel R. Schulz, and Angela Della Volpe, Analyzing English Grammar, 5th ed. Longman, 2007)
More Examples of absolute constructions without participle:
"Roy circles the bases like a Mississippi steamboat, lights lit, flags fluttering, whistle banging, coming round the bend."
"Harry froze, his cut finger slipping on the jagged edge of the mirror again."
"Bolenciecwcz was staring at the floor now, trying to think, his great brow furrowed, his huge hands rubbing together, his face red."
"The spider skins lie on their sides, translucent and ragged, their legs drying in knots."
"His bare legs cooled by sprinklers, his bare feet on the feathery and succulent grass, and his mobile phone in his hand (he was awaiting Lionel's summons), Des took a turn round the grounds."
"When Johnson Meechum came up the three steps of his purple double-wide trailer and opened the front door, his wife, Mabel, was waiting for him, her thin hands clenched on her hips, her tinted hair standing from her scalp in a tiny blue cloud."
"Six boys came over the hill half an hour early that afternoon, running hard, their heads down, their forearms working, their breath whistling."
"Whenever you heard distant music somewhere in the town, maybe so faint you thought you imagined it, so thin you blamed the whistling of the streetcar wires, then you could track the sound down and find Caleb straddling his little velocipede, speechless with joy, his appleseed eyes dancing."
"Still he came on, shoulders hunched, face twisted, wringing his hands, looking more like an old woman at a wake than an infantry combat soldier."
"A tall man, his shotgun slung behind his back with a length of plow line, dismounted and dropped his reins and crossed the little way to the cedar bolt."
"The men sit on the edge of the pens, the big white and silver fish between their knees, ripping with knives and tearing with hands, heaving the disemboweled bodies into a central basket."
"Hundreds and hundreds of frogs were sitting down that pipe, and they were all honking, all of them, not in unison but constantly, their little throats going, their mouths open, their eyes staring up with curiosity at Karel and Frances and their large human shadows."
"The accused man, Kabuo Miyamoto, sat proudly upright with a rigid grace, his palms placed softly on the defendant's table — the posture of a man who has detached himself insofar as this is possible at his own trial."
"The superintendent, his head on his chest, was slowly poking the ground with his stick."
"You can get a fair sense of the perils of an elevator shaft by watching an elevator rush up and down one, its counterweight flying by, like the blade on a guillotine."
"Two middle-aged men with jogging disease lumber past me, their faces purple, their bellies slopping, their running shoes huge and costly."
"At a right angle to the school was the back of the church, its bricks painted the color of dried blood."
"Ross sat on the edge of a chair several feet away from the table, leaning forward, the fingers of his left hand spread upon his chest, his right hand holding a white knitting needle which he used for a pointer."
"One by one, down the hill come the mothers of the neighborhood, their kids running beside them."
"I could see, even in the mist, Spurn Head stretching out ahead of me in the gloom, its spine covered in marram grass and furze, its shingle flanks speared with the rotting spars of failed breakwaters."
"Down the long concourse they came unsteadily, Enid favouring her damaged hip, Alfred paddling at the air with loose-hinged hands and slapping the airport carpeting with poorly controlled feet, both of them carrying Nordic Pleasurelines shoulder bags and concentrating on the floor in front of them, measuring out the hazardous distance three paces at a time."
Absolute constructions without participle allow us to diversify the syntactic pattern of the text, act as an alternative to subordinate clauses, compactly conveying the content inherent in them. Constructions have gone through a difficult path of evolution in languages and caused ambiguous, sometimes polar opinions among linguists - from complete rejection to admiration for their brevity, liveliness and beauty.
Disputes over their origin, linguistic status and many other issues have not subsided so far, and therefore a comprehensive analysis of such constructions is required, taking into account the achievements of modern linguistics. In the scientific literature, there is a significant variation in the use of terminology, interpretation of the syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and stylistic characteristics of absolute constructions without participle, which, according to Jacques Feyet, who analyzed the participle system in French, indicates a deep misunderstanding by linguists of its essence.
According to the scientist, only a thorough analysis of this linguistic phenomenon will help overcome significant obstacles to understanding the meanings of participles and their rich potential [Feuillet, 1989, p. 9]. More than 30 years have passed since the statement of this fact, linguists have repeatedly turned to the study of the properties of the absolute participial construction. However, there are still many debatable issues concerning, first of all, the origin of the construction and its normativity. Differences are found in determining the status of the construction in modern French: some linguists consider it as a circumstance of a “special type”, others as “participial clauses” or “absolute participial” sentences. The question of the predicativity of APC raises controversy.