Phrase families

If we study the origins of phrases, we can organize them into syntactical families that will give us an intuitive perspective of their purpose.  For example, the appositive is usually a noun phrase that identifies the previous person or thing:

            Hal, a stunt man, drove his Harley away.

The phrase could also be used as a subject complement in the clause:

            Hal was a stunt man.

Or we could write the phrase as a relative clause:

            Hal, who was a stunt man, drove his Harley away.

Similarly, other types of phrases can be expressed either as a standalone phrase or as part of a relative clause:

            Hal, [who was] a stunt man,                        drove his Harley away.     [noun appositive]

            Hal, [who was] young and restless,            drove his Harley away.     [adjectival appositive]

            Hal, [who was] under duress,                      drove his Harley away.     [prepositional phrase]

            Hal, [who was] born to ride,                        drove his Harley away.     [participial phrase]

            Hal, [who was] singing in the wind,             drove his Harley away.     [participial phrase]

            Hal, [whose] hair [was] blowing wildly,       drove his Harley away.     [noun absolute]

These phrases add contextual information about Hal that is closely related to the thought “Hal drove his Harley away”.

Taken into context, these six types of phrases represent shortened relative clauses.  They are shortcuts of English expression that increase the speed of conversation.  Readers/listeners do not need the omitted relative pronouns and linking verbs to understand each thought, because ‘who’ and ‘whose’ are redundant in that they refer to ‘Hal’; and ‘was’ is redundant because the verb ‘drove’ sets the past-tense of the sentence.  These six types of phrases are linguistic siblings and cousins that originate from parent relative clauses, which contain linking verbs. 

When we realize that these phrases are part of the same family, we can realize why English allows these shortened clauses to be placed before the item or person (Hal) that they refer to:

A stunt man,               Hal drove his Harley away.

Young and restless,    Hal drove his Harley away.

Under duress,             Hal drove his Harley away.

Born to ride,               Hal drove his Harley away.

Singing in the wind,    Hal drove his Harley away.

Hair blowing wildly, Hal drove his Harley away.

In this way, writers and speakers can artistically introduce related context about the subject ‘Hal’ without interrupting the flow of the main thought.

In addition, careful writers and speakers take the shortcut expressions containing participle verb forms (born, singing, blowing) and place them elsewhere in the sentence, but only if there is no confusion on who/what they refer to:

            Hal drove his Harley through the rugged canyon, born to ride.

            Hal drove his Harley through the rugged canyon, singing in the wind.

            Hal drove his Harley through the rugged canyon, hair blowing wildly.

In these sentences, the reader logically knows that Hal (not the Harley or the canyon) was born, was singing and had hair.  Also, in the last sentence, if there could be confusion, the writer may identify ‘whose’ hair with a personal pronoun:

            Hal drove his Harley with Sally behind, his hair blowing wildly.

            Hal drove his Harley with Sally behind, her hair blowing wildly.

            Hal drove his Harley with Sally behind, their hair blowing wildly.

Note that these last three phrases could have been added as prepositional phrases using ‘with’:

            Hal drove his Harley with Sally behind with their hair blowing wildly.

Realize that these six phrases are a leading cause of confusion, when they become dangling modifiers (misattached phrases).

Note also that skilled writers and speakers use absolute phrases, such as ‘hair blowing’, to introduce the context of a thought, many times omitting the preposition ‘with’:

[With]  The Sun shining brightly, Jeb trudged through the desert.

[With]  All things being equal, phrase families are easy to learn.

In addition, the six phrases serve as shortened infinitive phrases with the words ‘to be’ omitted:

            The movie director expected Hal            [to be] under duress.

            The movie director made Hal                  [to be] a stunt man.   [object complement]

            The movie director found Hal                 [to be] young and restless.

            The movie director discovered Hal         [to be] born to ride.

            The movie director wanted Hal               [to be] singing in the wind.

            The movie director wanted Hal's hair     [to be] blowing wildly.

When we study these phrases as a family, instead of separately (as appositives, prepositional phrases, participial phrases and absolutes), we gain an intuitive sense of their purpose and a more natural and complete understanding of English structure.  This lesson kills six birds with one stone by introducing six sentence functions and also identifies the major reasons for dangling modifiers.

Darryl Bishop