‘and all without leaving home’
Hello, everyone,
“As for a new way of working out, using virtual reality technology, an Italian company has recently released an innovative product. It is an indoor bike combined with virtual reality. The rider mounts the bike, puts on the virtual reality gear, and starts riding. The rider then feels as if he is actually riding on a road of his choice, whether a street in a major city, or a calm mountain path, and all without leaving home.“
* source; from our local textbook for high school students
How can I make a suitable grammatical analysis about the underlined part - “and all without leaving home”, while I think;
1) It is the abbreviated form of “and all (of his choices) (being) without leaving home”, which is one of ‘the (nominative) absolute clause’.
2) If so, I feel the conjunction “and” wouldn’t be needed. Why did the writer put this “and” before “all” unusually in this construction?
I would appreciate it, if you kindly share your valuable opinions.
Top answer
deepcosmos How can I make a suitable grammatical analysis about the underlined part - “and all without leaving home” Good question. I sometimes wonder if absolutely every combination of words in English has a systemic analysis. It seems to me that, contrary to many linguistic theories, there is a systemic grammar of English (or any language) and in addition a rather large number of non-systemic idioms, and these latter constructions can resist a definitive analysis.
- deepcosmos How can I make a suitable grammatical analysis about the underlined part - “and all without leaving home” Good question.
- I sometimes wonder if absolutely every combination of words in English has a systemic analysis.
- It seems to me that, contrary to many linguistic theories, there is a systemic grammar of English (or any language) and in addition a rather large number of non-systemic idioms, and these latter constructions can resist a definitive analysis.
- Nevertheless, in the case at hand I would proceed through a paraphrase (or more than one), filling in what seem to be the missing words: and all without leaving home ~ and he does all of this without leaving home and all without leaving home ~ and this is all done without leaving home This argues for the view that 'all without leaving home' is what is called a small clause — typically a clause without a verb.
- Depending on which school of linguistics you follow, the terminology may differ.
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deepcosmosHow can I make a suitable grammatical analysis about the underlined part - “and all without leaving home”
Good question.
I sometimes wonder if absolutely every combination of words in English has a systemic analysis. It seems to me that, contrary to many linguistic theories, there is a systemic grammar of English (or any language) and in ad
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