How does an absolute phrase grammatical function in a sentence?
Does it act as noun, adjective or adverb?
Is the entire absolute phrase used as adverb?
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Sign up to join this communityAbsolute clauses are adjuncts that function as supplements, loosely attached elements set off by intonation and (usually) by punctuation.
[His hands gripping the door], he shouted out for help.
In this example the bracketed supplement qualifies as an absolute construction because it has a subject, and is subordinate in form but has no syntactic link to the main clause ("He shouted out for help").
Thus, its category is non-finite clause and its function is adjunct.
Note that supplements are not modifiers; rather, they refer to a semantic 'anchor', in this case "he".