🚀 go-pugleaf

English school grammar teaches that English possesses a construction
known as the "nominative absolute".  Examples:

	The war being over, he returned home.
	Gaul having been conquered, Caesar returned to Rome.

The latter type is familiar mainly from overly literal translations in
the days when schoolboys (and some girls) regularly read Caesar's _Gallic
Wars_, where we find sentences of the type

	Gallia: victa:, Caesar Ro:mam rediit.

In Latin, and all other languages where I have found such a construction,
the case of the absolute is precisely *not* nominative.  Latin, as all
linguists would once have known, used the ablative, and Old English
used the dative.

The question then arises: on what basis do we say that the English
absolute construction contains a "nominative"?  Pronouns are quite
rare, but for me the only natural case with an occasional pronominal
absolute would be precisely accusative.

	Him being such a fool, of course she went off with another man.

Furthermore, a nominative would be unparalleled in English, since the
nominative is otherwise found only before *finite* verbs, which
_being_ is not

So, people: Does anyone have an idea how the *nominative* absolute
made its way into our school grammars?  Do you find my last example
acceptable, or would you prefer

	??He being such a fool, of course she ...

Any comments, plaudits, and brickbats are welcome.  Please post unless
you want to get personal, but after December 20 pleas e-mail, as I'll
be out of town.

--Leo Connolly