Absolute constructions also aren’t grammatical fossils irrelevant to current English. We still use sentences today that contain free-floating absolutes to modify verbs in the same way as in the Second Amendment, through phrases such as “all things being equal,” “everything being considered,” “weather permitting,” “God willing,” “that being the case.” Here’s another example of an absolute construction defining the reason and occasion for an action: “The first draft of the Second Amendment being repetitive and clunky, James Madison revised it.”
Here’s Madison’s first draft: “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country: but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person.” In his revision, Madison created a more precise, elegant sentence, comprised of an absolute construction and an independent clause, to become the Second Amendment as we now know it.
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