word order - Can a present participle follow a subject?


Which is correct, and why?



some days we went on adventures — him maneuvering our scooter, me resting my chin …



or



some days we went on adventures — he maneuvering our scooter, I resting my chin …




Answer



They are examples of absolute constructions:



Absolute construction From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:


In linguistics, an absolute construction is a grammatical construction standing apart from a normal or usual syntactical relation with other words or sentence elements. It can be a non-finite clause that is subordinate in form and modifies an entire sentence, an adjective or possessive pronoun standing alone without a modified substantive, or a transitive verb when its object is implied but not stated. The term absolute derives from Latin absolūtum, meaning "loosened from" or "separated" ...


Example Usages:


Being a word, phrase, or construction that is isolated syntactically from the rest of a sentence:


“this being the case, let us go”


"The referee having finally arrived, the game began....



More obviously related is



"The game began,/– the referee having finally arrived."



Usually, the noun group before the -ing form does not inflect for case, but this rare use of inflecting pronouns poses a problem. I'd agree with Leon that it's hard to make a decision between nominative and accusative, with the absolute construction being 'self-contained' and almost certainly elliptical. Informality would argue against using the nominative pronouns here, but then informality would argue against using either alternative:



some days we went on adventures – he would manoeuvre our scooter while I rested my chin ...



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