...she'd broken her leg tripping over...

Question

The sentence below comes from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I don't quite understand why a present participle, 'tripping', goes after 'broken her leg.' Is that a regular usage - break one's leg + Ving ? I really can't find that in dictionaries. Can anyone help and explain ?

"It turned out she'd broken her leg tripping over one of her cats, and she didn't seem quite as fond of them as before."---Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Avangi · Accepted Answer

AnonymousIt turned out she'd broken her leg tripping over one of her cats

The present participial phrase describes the action. It's quite common.

I choked drinking a glass of ice water
AnonymousI don't quite understand why a present participle, 'tripping', goes after 'broken her leg.' Is that a regular usage - break one's leg + Ving ?
I wouldn't say that "to break one's leg tripping" is really a collocation any more than "to fall asleep driving" is.
OR '"to chip my tooth eating peanut brittle."

Best regards, - A.

CalifJim · Answer

AnonymousIt turned out she'd broken her leg tripping over one of her cats

The present participle construction can often be paraphrased by adding an initial by or as a result of:

... broken her leg ( [by / as a result of] ) tripping over one of her cats.

-- that is, she broke her leg because she had tripped over one of her cats.

It has nothing to do with any special grammar involving breaking legs! This pattern is used quite often, however, in cases of personal disasters.

Compare:

Steve wrenched his back carrying the television to the bedroom.
Paula twisted her ankle getting into the car last night.
Henry went into a panic thinking about how he would do on his English exam.

CJ

Anonymous · Answer

Thanks for your answer, Calif Jim.

But, what are the rules to leave out 'by', 'as result of', etc.? For most non-native English speakers, we follow dictionaries and grammar reference books to make sure the sentences we produce are correct. But, I don't see such rules in dictionaries or reference books. Is it possible to show me where to find such rules?

Thanks again

CalifJim · Answer

AnonymousBut, what are the rules to leave out 'by', 'as result of', etc.? For most non-native English speakers, we follow dictionaries and grammar reference books to make sure the sentences we produce are correct. But, I don't see such rules in dictionaries or reference books. Is it possible to show me where to find such rules?

These are matters of style rather than of grammar, so there are no grammatical rules. You can only get the general idea of what works and what doesn't by throwing away your reference books and reading English a lot and imitating what you read. I'm sorry to say that there is no magic formula -- not that I know of. Maybe another forum member will have some better suggestions.

CJ

Anonymous · Answer

CalifJimBut, what are the rules to leave out 'by', 'as result of', etc.?

My sense is that the causal relation is not mandatory, even when only "implied."

It seems she had fallen [while/by] hurrying to answer the phone.

The participial phrase describes the action, and when the connecting words are "omitted," we're left to draw our own conclusions about the details.

I learned a lot being an assistant manager.
Perhaps we'll learn more in the next sentence.

(Guess who - danged thing keeps logging me out in FF - right in the middle of a post!)

She found the cat hiding under the bed. (Is something omitted here?)

CalifJim · Answer

AnonymousShe found the cat hiding under the bed. (Is something omitted here?)

Of course, Avangi! It's just as I said above:

She found the cat as a result of hiding under the bed.

CJ

Sorry you're having so much trouble with those nasty logouts.

I think there are scholarly articles here and there on the internet dealing with the implied connectors for participial clauses, but I haven't located a really good one so far. As I recall from some reading months ago, the semantic relations between main and participial clauses are regarded as pretty "loosey goosey" and can be just about anything in the general case. But for the specific examples we seem to be fairly adept at judging one or two connectors that might be implied purely from the meaning of the sentence. So it's more a semantic thing than a syntactic thing.

CJ

Oh. By the way. I think the usual analysis of the cat example is to treat found as a catenative verb. to find [s.o. / s.t.] -ing. cat is thus the subject of a subordinate clause and hiding is much more verb-like than adverb- or adjective-like. This fact is sometimes stated thus: find can take a clause complement.

...she'd broken her leg tripping over...

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