Note.—From the sentence just quoted we learn that the absolute phrase does not always contain a participle; it may consist of a substantive and an adjective, as in his eyes full of terror. We also find absolute phrases in which a prepositional phrase takes the place of the participle; as, “He left my side, a summer bloom on his fair cheeks, a smile parting his innocent lips.”—Miss Mitford.
It is even possible to make an absolute phrase of two substantives as, “Hargreaves and Arkwright, both Englishmen, invented and improved spinning and weaving machinery.”
It would be proper to supply the participle being before either the adjective, the prepositional phrase, or the noun, but it is best to dispose of constructions just as we find them.
A construction parallel to the absolute phrase is found in the sentence, “Half way up the hill he met Bagheera with the morning dew shining like moonstones on his coat.”—Kipling. Here the object of the preposition with is the whole group of words following it, and of this group the base-words are the noun dew and the participle shining, which have the logical relation of subject and predicate. This is a very common construction after the prepositions with and without.
3. The participial phrase often takes the place not of a whole proposition but only of a predicate; for example, “Westward on the banks of the Thames, the towers of Westminster Abbey stand guarding the ashes of England’s greatest men.” The meaning here is, the towers stand and guard; but by means of the participle one of these predicates is subordinated to the other. The participial phrase is not so much a complement of the verb stand as an accompaniment of it; at the same time it tells an attribute of the subject.
A construction seemingly like the one just given, but in reality different, is found after verbs of going or coming. These verbs may be followed by participles which tell not an accompanying action, but how the going or coming is accomplished; as, “Sometimes a wandering leaf came floating and wavering downward, and settled on the water.”—Longfellow. This does not mean that the leaf came and floated and wavered, but only that it floated and wavered, and these actions were the means of its coming. Such a participle is truly a modifier of the verb.
4. The participle as part of a double object.—After a few verbs like keep, find, see, hear, feel, have, we find the participle taking the place of the infinitive in a double object. The participle is almost always chosen when a passive construction is needed; as, “The saddle fell to earth, and he heard it trampled under-foot by his pursuer.”—Irving. When the active construction is called for, the advantage of the participle over the infinitive is that it gives the idea of longer continuance of the action; as, “Just then he heard the black steed panting and blowing close behind him.”—Irving.
The expression kept me waiting is grammatically equivalent to made me wait.
5. There are two constructions of the participle that are quite different from any of those cited, being deviations from its ordinary use.
(a) The participle used adverbially to denote degree; thus, boiling hot, stinging cold, dripping wet. Here the participles unmistakably modify adjectives.