When we moved into our house in New Hampshire it was full of gadgets installed by earlier owners, all of them designed to make life a little easier [The Convenience Society, or con for short | Bill Bryson]
As far as I can recognize, “all of them designed to make life a little easier” is an absolute phrase. [Please correct me if I am wrong]. However, I’ve encountered some people claiming that an absolute phrase is supposed to provide information related to the whole rest of the sentence not just a part of it. And as “part of them…” is only relating to “gadgets” here. Thus, I gather that there is something incorrect in the sentence above. How does everyone think? Is the sentence semantically and syntatically correct?
The original sounds fine to me.
Not being a grammar geek, I could only send you to that, quite comprehensive, site for you to decide whether the sentence you stumbled on had an absolute phrase in it.
testmagic.com/grammar/explan … ses-04.asp
According to the website you provided me Eugene “…Please notice that in every case the absolute phrase provides some sort of information that works to put the whole sentence or idea in context.” The one of Bill Bryson is not an absolute phrase, so I am wondered whether does anyone have any idea what grammar stuture this writer used? The sentence sounds fine to me too, but I a little bit confused as to whether his sentence is grammatically correct or not.
If you mean the potentially confusing “full of gadgets installed by earlier owners, all of them designed” part, I find it quite clear: [full of what?—gadgets, designed by…], ‘installed’ and ‘designed’ referring to the same (‘gadgets’) noun.
Sorry, but this is where my competence ends. Not big on dissecting sentences, even in my native…
I’d also say that the original sentence is acceptable for grammar, syntax and semantics. An absolute construction is sometimes related to the main/dominating idea which, here, is ‘full of gadgets’.
Consider this modified version: The house we moved into was full of gadgets (installed by earlier owners) - all of them designed to make life a little easier (meaning 'all of which were designed to make life a little easier’).
Eugene2114 ^^ The “Please notice that…” is not my sentence, don’t get me wrong. I quoted it from the website you give me. Tks for all your help guys
How about reading the part in question as a participle phrase functioning as an adjective to add description to the sentence?
“A participle phrase will begin with a present or past participle.
“The horse trotting up to the fence hopes that you have an apple or carrot” –example of a present participle where ‘trotting up to the fence’ modifies the noun horse.
“Eaten by mosquitoes, we wished that we had made hotel, not campsite, reservation”-- example of a past participle where ‘Eaten by mosquitoes’ modifies the pronoun we.
chompchomp.com/terms/participlephrase.htm
Then in the original, ”designed to make life a little easier” could modify the noun ‘gadgets’.
Again, don’t rely too much on me as a person having anything in common with grammar.
“When you come to a fork in the road take it.”
You’re over-thinking it now, Eugene.
You were correct with your earlier posts.
Which one was correct? And what did we really have in the original?