Feb 15, 2023 18:51
1 yr ago
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English term
what is the sentence structure here? (pls see the excerpt below)
English
Art/Literary
Poetry & Literature
grammar question
How is the 4th sentence structured grammatically? Is it a full sentence with _ashes_ as the subject and _carried on_ as a simple verbal predicate, or is it an incomplete sentence (a participial phrase, actually)?
"He lay listening to the water drip in the woods. Bedrock, this. The cold and the silence. The ashes of the late world _carried on_ the bleak and temporal winds to and fro in the void. Carried forth and scattered and carried forth again. Everything uncoupled from its shoring. Unsupported in the ashen air. Sustained by a breath, trembling and brief. If only my heart were stone."
Everyone's opinion much appreciated, thank you
"He lay listening to the water drip in the woods. Bedrock, this. The cold and the silence. The ashes of the late world _carried on_ the bleak and temporal winds to and fro in the void. Carried forth and scattered and carried forth again. Everything uncoupled from its shoring. Unsupported in the ashen air. Sustained by a breath, trembling and brief. If only my heart were stone."
Everyone's opinion much appreciated, thank you
Responses
Responses
+1
13 mins
Nicholas Laurier Eveneshen
Portugal
Portugal
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English
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Portugal
DE-EN Linguistic Specialist, MA
Native in: English (Variants: UK, US, Canadian) 
Works in: German to English, English
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The ashes carried on... carried forth and scattered and carried forth again
Strictly grammatically, the fourth sentence is incomplete, as it's missing its subject. But in the flow of reading, i.e. in the context of the group of sentences as a whole, stylistically, the subject is indeed "ashes of the late world", which is the same subject then brought into the fifth sentence.
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Note added at 26 mins (2023-02-15 19:17:27 GMT)
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In other words, yes, it's an incomplete sentence functioning more like a participial phrase, grammatically "scattered" perhaps to match the ashes themselves being scattered as such.
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Note added at 26 mins (2023-02-15 19:17:27 GMT)
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In other words, yes, it's an incomplete sentence functioning more like a participial phrase, grammatically "scattered" perhaps to match the ashes themselves being scattered as such.
Note from asker:
| Thank you for your answer. Could you please have a look at the version I posted in the discussion section? |
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer.
Comment: "thank you"
11 hrs
Hamza Nurie
Kenya
Kenya
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English
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Somali and Kiswahili Language Translator
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Ashes carried by winds. Structure: subject-verb-object with adverbial phrase.
The 4th sentence is a complete sentence with "ashes" as the subject and "carried on" as the verb. The phrase "carried on the bleak and temporal winds to and fro in the void" is an adverbial phrase that describes how the ashes move.
Peer comment(s):
| neutral |
Nicholas Laurier Eveneshen
: It's only implied, for poetic effect, to be a complete sentence, but as the others in the discussion pointed out, it's a passive construction with the "were" missing, making it technically incomplete.
3 hrs
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19 hrs
carried (= verb in passive form i.e. = "being carried") // "on" is not part of the verb
(The ashes of the late world) + (carried) + (on the bleak and temporal winds) + (to and fro in the void).
=>
[around him...]
The ashes of the late world (the object of the action)
carried (= verb in passive form i.e. = "being carried")
on the bleak and temporal winds (= the "agent" of the "carrying action" / subject in the active form)
to and fro in the void
Rephrasing the whole sentence in the active form of the verb:
the bleak and temporal winds (subject)
carried ("on their back" verb)
The ashes of the late world (object)
to and fro in the void
Next sentence:
Carried forth and scattered and carried forth again
=
[The ashes of the late world (were being)] carried [on the bleak and temporal winds] forth and scattered and carried forth again.
Discussion
As in he didn’t see the answer staring him in the face 😏
An intransitive instance of "to carry" would have no direct object. For example, "the ashes carry well in the bleak and temporal winds". If you rewrite the fifth sentence to read as the ashes "carry forth", it is intransitive. If left as "carried forth" and given the context of the fourth sentence, it implies again that the ashes "(were) carried forth (by something)", making the sentence transitive.
Check out further down in this Merriam dictionary entry for more examples of "to carry" used intransitively: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/carry
I don't know what a participial phrase or a verbal predicate are, but there's no ambiguity here, Nicholas. As Tony says, it's just a fragment.