While I can't claim to know enough grammar to respond to Martha's analysis
of the construction in question, I confess I don't understand why the
"nonfinite, reduced passive clause" can't be explained in a straightforward
way:


I stood still, and I fixed my whole attention upon the motion of her fingers.

I stood still, and my whole attention was fixed (by me) upon the motion of
her fingers.

(eliminate the "was" and the "and")
I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motion of her fingers.

In other words, "attention" is the direct object.

Bill


>Dear ATEG Listers:
>
>In the following sentence, "I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the
>motion of her fingers, " (Helen Keller), I analyze 'my whole attention fixed
>upon the motion of her fingers' as a nonfinite, reduced passive clause.  I
>was trying to explain this to my class recently, and I found that though I am
>convinced that 'fixed' is nonfinite, none of my usual explanations worked.
>It simply refused to reveal itself neatly as nonfinite.
>
>When I am working with clauses having transitive verbs, I usually use passive
>transformations as a way of clarifying for myself the elements of that
>clause.  After my students had trouble seeing the clause as nonfinite, I
>spent a few minutes after class working it over.  I first tried to make it
>work as a simple transitive verb sentence with  'fixed' as a finite verb: 'my
>whole attention fixed upon the motion of her fingers.'  What I discovered is
>that although it is possible to write and say such a sentence, it doesn't
>behave like a transitive verb sentence, or like other clauses with 'fix' as
>their verb.
>
>For example
>'The man fixed the picture to the wall.'  This is easily made passive:
>'The picture was fixed to the wall by the man.'  However, in the case of 'my
>whole attention fixed upon the motion of her fingers,' I cannot make it
>passive because there is no direct object, yet 'fixed' seems to call for a
>direct object.
>
>If I change the sentence to 'my whole attention fixed itself upon the motion
>of her fingers,' the passive version is *Itself was fixed upon the motion of
>her fingers by my whole attention.  Well, that won't work.  The problem seems
>to be that 'my whole attention' as the subject can't actually perform the
>action of 'fixing'; 'my whole attention' is actually the thing that is being
>fixed and therefore is the object.
>
>I finally decided that this sentence's recalcitrance was itself evidence that
>'my whole attention fixed upon the motion of her fingers' is actually a
>reduced version of ''my whole attention was fixed upon the motion of her finge
>rs (by me),' the active version being 'I fixed my whole attention upon the
>motion of her fingers.'
>
>So I have two questions.
>
>1.  Do you agree that 'my whole attention fixed upon the motion of her
>fingers' is actually a nonfinite clause?  Might there be an acceptable finite
>reading of this?
>
>2.  How would you explain this to a group of students who are studying to be
>teachers and who are none too comfortable with the concepts finiteness and
>non-finiteness?  I've already rejected "Because I said so."
>
>I feel compelled to add that I believe that the ability to determine whether
>a verb is finite or not in a given clause is going to be useful to these
>students in their future roles as English and language arts teachers.  I'm
>not just doing this to torture them --or myself.
>
>Janet Castilleja


William J. McCleary
3247 Bronson Hill Road
Livonia, NY 14487
716-346-6859