This sentence structure

Question

There was a picture of my parents' wedding night, Baba dashing in his black suit and my mother a smiling young princess in white.

My question:
1) Why do we have dashing here but not dashed?
2) Why is there no to be verb before a smiling young princess etc ?

Belly · Accepted Answer

anyone?

Mr Wordy · Answer

1) "dashing" is an adjective here (for meaning, see http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dashing ). I suppose the word was originally related to the verb "to dash" (of which "dashed" is the past tense), but the connection is not very obvious to modern speakers. It's best to think of "dashing" (adjective) as a separate word.

2) You could write it like this:

"There was a picture of my parents' wedding night; Baba was dashing in his black suit and my mother was a smiling young princess in white."

However, "was" can be deleted and the sentence is still grammatically correct (but note the change in punctuation that I suggested). I don't know why this sentence structure is possible; it just is.

Anonymous · Answer

1. Dashing is not the same as dashed. Dashing is an adjective meaning that Baba looked handsome, Dashed is the past tense of the verb Dash meaning to run somewhere quickly.

2. I'm not sure, but maybe they share the verb 'was' that's in the first half of the sentence so it isn't necessary to repeat it.

Mr Wordy · Answer

AnonymousI'm not sure, but maybe they share the verb 'was' that's in the first half of the sentence so it isn't necessary to repeat it

I don't think this is strictly correct since it would be equally possible to write:

"They arrived early the next morning, Baba dashing in his black suit and my mother a smiling young princess in white."

Here there is no "was" in the first part.

Anonymous · Answer

' There was a picture of my parents' wedding night, Baba dashing in his black suit and my mother a smiling young princess in white.'

'dashing in his black suit' = adjective phrase

'a smiling young princess in white' = adjective phrase

They're just extra long adjectives and thus don't need a verb.

This sentence structure

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