Linking verb omission

Question

Hi,When I watch a news video clip, I notice that the host or the reporter sometimes leaves out the linking verb "be".  Is there a reason for doing that?  ex1) We begin here with the images from that deadly nightmare at sea, passengers saying it was like something out of Titanic after this cruise ship ran aground near the coast of Tuscany.    4000 passengers on board.  ex2) It was a frantic rescue operation, authorities having to crawl through the listing ship and divers searching underwater sections for anyone left inside. ex3)  And as you heard Lama report there, many of the frightened passengers barely making it out, crawling in the dark, grasping for their life vests, trying to get to safety as the broken ship tipped over.  And of course, so many of them swimming to shore on their own.I'd appreciate your answer.p.s. Actually, they sometimes omit the "be" verb and some other times, change the past tense into the present participle form.  I'd like to know why they are doing this.

Clive · Accepted Answer

Hi,

It's the way such news people often speak. Possibly they think the use of the present participle makes the story seem more immediate to the listener.It also means it takes less time for them to say these things.

Clive

Doodles · Answer

These are examples of noun/participle phrases which journalists use to describe things.
e.g. there is a monkey sitting on the table, eating a sandwich, smiling at me...
The verb 'to be' is simply not necessary here.

Hope that answers your question

Dimsumexpress · Answer

jooneyex1) We begin here with the images from that deadly nightmare at sea, passengers saying it was like something out of Titanic after this cruise ship ran aground near the coast of Tuscany. 4000 passengers on board.

ex2) It was a frantic rescue operation, authorities having to crawl through the listing ship and divers searching underwater sections for anyone left inside.

ex3) And as you heard Lama report there, many of the frightened passengers barely making it out, crawling in the dark, grasping for their life vests, trying to get to safety as the broken ship tipped over. And of course, so many of them swimming to shore on their own

Hi Jooney,
I am not sure it is a deliberate "omission". I think they were intended to be present participle clauses.
I am not going to comment on the grammaticality of these passages. But I have highlighted what I believe are problems.That said, I do feel that a native speaker reporter are unlikely to narrate the ship story in such awkward style.That's my opinion. Is it possible that you misheard them ?

Jooney · Answer

Thank you for the reply, Clive.

Jooney · Answer

Thank you for your answer, doodles. But I'm not so sure that all of the sentences mentioned above are examples of participial clauses.

Jooney · Answer

HI, DE.

These are the actual words said by David Muir, the weekend anchor for "World News" I don't think I misheard them.

Doodles · Answer

You could insert the words "there was/were" and it would perhaps seem clearer. The journalist omitted these words for the sake of brevity and not having to repeat.

Jooney · Answer

Thank you for replying me back, doodles.

So the changes that can be made in the underlined parts are as follows:(please correct me if I'm wrong)

ex1) We begin here with the images from that deadly nightmare at sea, passengers saying it was like something out of Titanic after this cruise ship ran aground near the coast of Tuscany. 4000 passengers on board.

passengers saying=> There were passengers saying

4000 passengers on board=> There were 4000 passengers on board

ex2) It was a frantic rescue operation, authorities having to crawl through the listing ship and divers searching underwater sections for anyone left inside.

authorities having to=>There were authorities having to
drivers searching=> (there were) drivers searching

ex3) And as you heard Lama report there, many of the frightened passengers barely making it out, crawling in the dark, grasping for their life vests, trying to get to safety as the broken ship tipped over. And of course, so many of them swimming to shore on their own.

many of the frightened passengers barely making it out=>There were many of the passengers barely making it out

so many of them swimming=>There were so many of them swimming

Isn't it possible to think of them as shortened versions of the past tense sentences, though? For example,

passengers saying=> passengers said
many of the frightened passengers barely making it out=>many of the frightened passengers barely made it out

Is this line of thinking wrong? I'd like to have proper knowledge about this.

CalifJim · Answer

jooneyex1) We begin here with the images from that deadly nightmare at sea, passengers saying it was like something out of Titanic after this cruise ship ran aground near the coast of Tuscany. 4000 passengers on board. passengers saying=> There were passengers saying

You can always rephrase the participle clauses so that they form independent clauses, but the "feel" of this construction is then lost, in some cases to a considerable extent. The "feel" is, as someone said above, is the feel of immediacy - all these things happening at once.

The rest of your examples can all be analyzed as sentence fragments OR as the piling up of more and more images expressed with participle clauses to make them sound more immediate, more exciting, as if they were all tacked on to the one main clause several sentences past.

CJ

Jooney · Answer

And as you heard Lama report there, many of the frightened passengers barely making it out, crawling in the dark, grasping for their life vests, trying to get to safety as the broken ship tipped over.

If you consider the underlined part as a reduced version of a "there" construction, the full version is as follows:

There were many of the frightened passengers barely making it out.

And the basic counterpart of this would be:

Many of the frightened passengers were barely making it out.

Is this the intended meaning of the underlined?

Linking verb omission

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