Лекции по теоретической грамматике английского языка для студентов

Sentences with
secondary predication
. 
Every sentence has predication, without it there would be no sentence. In a 
usual two-member sentence the predication is between the subject and the 
predicate. There are also sentences that contain one more predication, which can be 
termed secondary predication.
In English there are several ways of expressing secondary predication:
1) the complex object (e.g. I saw you take it.) The syntactic function of the 
group 
you take
(or of its elements) can be considered either a complex object (in 
this case the group is treated is a single syntactic unit) or an object and an objective 
predicative. The choice between the two interpretations remains arbitrary. There is 
no universal approach. 
O. Jespersen has proposed the term "nexus" for every predicative grouping 
of words, no matter by what grammatical means it is realised. He distinguishes 
between a "junction", which is not a predicative group of words (e. g. reading man) 
and "nexus", which is one (e. g. the man reads).l If this term is adopted, we may 
say that in the sentence I saw him run there are two nexuses: the primary one I 
saw, and the secondary him run. In a similar way, in the sentence I found him ill, 
the primary nexus would be I found, and the secondary him ill. 

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2) the absolute construction. 
The absolute construction expresses attending circumstances — something 
that happens alongside of the main action. This secondary action may be the cause 
of the main action, or its condition, etc., but these relations are not indicated by any 
grammatical means.
The absolute construction is, as we have seen, basically a feature of literary 
style and unfit for colloquial speech. Only a few more or less settled formulas such 
as 
weather permitting
may be found in ordinary conversation. Otherwise colloquial 
speech practically always has subordinate clauses where literary style may have 
absolute constructions.