Don and Rebecca did an excellent job of catching my (unintentionally expressed)
meaning in the difference between "Rebecca's taking over" and "Rebecca
taking over," although I disagree with Rebecca if she is implying that
the two are almost identical in meaning. I agree with Jesperson that there
is a difference in the two between "nexus" and "junction." The noun absolute,
as direct object, expresses the nexal meaning -- "Rebecca" and "taking
over" are equally important. On the other hand, the gerund, modified by
a possessive, emphasizes the "taking over."
Martha says that no grammarian considers the
noun absolute as a noun, but Paul Roberts does, in Understanding Grammar
(p. 355). He gives two examples, one of a subject -- "Linda in trouble
was ample reason for my going." and one as an appositive -- "That's Pagahead
for you, the right hand not keeping the left aware of what is going on."
As for Quirk, we need to know what his philosophical
bias is. By that I mean that the structuralist and early transformational
grammars were developed with NO interest in what a sentence MEANS. Of course,
my primary objection to Martha, Quirk, and now Richard Veit, is that they
like grammar (and grammar books) too much. Their explanations
are too long, too complex, and, ultimately, too sterile for the general
public. Martha, for example, says that we should teach the noun absolute,
but what does that mean? We have been "teaching" grammar for decades, but
there is little evidence that students have learned much from it.
As Richard says, "But for those who love playing
with these things, there are further
complications to keep us busy." My problem is that while "we"
are busy "playing," most students, and teachers, cannot recognize basic
subjects, verbs, clauses, etc. In the KISS approach, noun absolutes are
in the last level -- the level at which students mop up any words that
they cannot otherwise analyze. That means that they would be forced to
see the noun absolute in "My hand behind my back, I couldn't catch the
ball." Students would not need to see the absolute as direct object. They
could analyze "They saw the soldiers leaving." as "soldiers," (DO) and
"leaving" as a gerundive (participle). Doing so, of course, would make
them miss the fine points of meaning that Don and Rebecca caught, but for
most students, that would be a fine point.
Paul Doniger raised a good question
about my statement that most teachers are not prepared. There are, of course,
no studies on this. My impression is based on things such as the many questions
and comments that I received while editor of SIS, and, for example,
on the fact that the intended standardized tests in England were canceled
because the teachers noted that they themselves could not identify clauses.
It might, by the way, be an interesting project for ATEG to see what the
current state of knowledge about grammar actually is. Could the group come
up with a test that would be administered to teachers in a number of school
systems? (I'd bet that even if the group came up with such a test, the
teachers would object -- because they do not feel comfortable with their
knowledge of grammar.)
Ed V.