Participial Construction & Absolute Construction : Difference Explained

Every learner of English ought to know the difference between participial construction and absolute construction . These two constructions are the source of many an error often committed by English - users .

What is participial construction? It is a common type of sentence construction in English . It consists of a participial phrase or clause followed by the main clause. The participle may be present participle ( - ing) or past participle ( -ed or -en) . Look at these sentences :

*Singing loudly , Rama entered the room .
*Being popular , he will win the election hands down .
*Tired from work, Sita went to bed early.
*Having read the book , she returned it to the library.
*Disappointed in love he, decided to commit suicide .

The first part of the sentence is called a participial phrase . The verbs in participial phrases are in the participle forms , present or past, and their subjects (not mentioned) are always the same as the subjects in the main clauses . So , remember that if you put a noun or pronoun other than the real subject( that is, subject of the participial phrase) at the beginning of the main clause , it may result in confusion ! Look at this sentence :

Walking in the grass , a snake bit her .

What impression do you get? Was the snake walking? If you re-write the sentence as

Walking in the grass, she was bitten by a snake

the sentence would make sense .

Now, let me discuss Absolute Construction . This type of sentence construction makes use of absolute phrases . What is an absolute phrase? Well, it is different from participial phrases in that it explicitly mentions the subject. The subject is never mentioned in participial phrases . For example, "being rich" is a participial phrase , "he being rich" is an absolute phrase . Another difference between participial construction and absolute construction is that the subjects of absolute phrases are always different from those of their main clauses . For this reason the syntactic relation between the absolute phrase and the main clause is always a fragile one . Hence the name absolute construction . You know absolute means "independent" or "not related " etc . The absolute phrases serves to give additional details in a hurried manner, so to speak . Nonetheless, there is a strong semantic relation between the absolute phrase and the main clause . Look at these sentences :

*The party being over, the guests began to depart .
*Her husband being away, she felt lonely and miserable .
*All government offices will remain closed tomorrow, tomorrow being a holiday .
*The doctor having arrived, she looked happy and cheerful .

I hope you have understood the difference between absolute construction and participial construction . ,This will help you to avoid errors in future . .

Thank you for visiting!

I thank the readers for their comments .
A reader from Korea wants me to comment on the sentence :
While Caruso drinking the fresh apple cider, the farmer asked the famous singer his name
This sentence is not an example for absolute construction. Nor is it an example for participial construction. The omission of was before drinking is the cause of the error.The omission must have been due to oversight .

Prof. V.P.Rajappan