Sentences like this appeared with some regularity in style guides and writing
manuals a couple of decades ago that were produced by people who lacked train-
ing in linguistics. Fortunately, they aren’t common today. There is no question
that sentence 84 is ungrammatical, but the problem is not that it ends in a preposi-
tion.Onhere is a particle, not a preposition, and it has been moved incorrectly. If
we put the wordonbehind eitherputorshoes,the sentence is perfectly correct.
Phrasal Modification
On page 80, we looked at a sentence from Ernest Hemingway:
- Manuel swung with the charge, sweeping the muleta ahead of the bull, feet
firm, the sword a point of light under the arcs.
This sentence is of interest because of the kinds of modifiers it contains.
They are known generally asphrasal modifiers.If we analyze this sentence, we
see that it contains a dependent clause and three phrasal modif iers:
Dependent Clause: Manuel swung with the charge
Modifier 1: sweeping the muleta ahead of the bull
Modifier 2: feet firm
Modifier 3: the sword a point of light under the arcsWe can say that at least modifiers 1 and 3 have their own head words,
sweepingand thesword,respectively, which define the nature of the con-
structions. That is, the words that followsweepingand theswordcluster
around these head words. On this basis, we can say further that modifier 1 is a
verb phrase (becausesweepingis a verb) and that modifier 3 is a noun phrase
(because theswordis a noun phrase). Thus, verbs and nouns compose two
types of phrasal modifiers.
Modifier 2 is different because it has a noun that is followed by an adjective.
In fact, it is representative of a type of phrasal modifier that has two related
forms. The first form we see in modifier 2; the second form we see in the fol-
lowing: “Fred,his head pounding,took two aspirin and lay down.”
The italics set off the phrasal modifier, which in this case is composed of
a noun phrase and a verb. This type of modifier, in its two forms—noun
phrase plus adjective and noun phrase plus verb—is called anominative ab-
solute.The verb phrase, the noun phrase, and the nominative absolute are
three of the major kinds of phrasal modifiers. The fourth major kind is the
prepositional phrase, which is explored in more detail in the next chapter.
94 CHAPTER 3