What grammar parts are they?

Question

Please tell me what grammar part they are. Two separate sentences

You start to fall asleep in the tents, pitched on the snow-covered ice, then wake up, heart racing and gasping for air as your body's autonomic nervous system tries to figure out why it isn't getting enough oxygen.

There is no time for boyfriends, my career comes first.

Mister Micawber · Accepted Answer

heart racing and gasping for air as your body's autonomic nervous system tries to figure out why it isn't getting enough oxygen. -- This is a nonfinite (participial) clause acting as a sentence adverbial.

There is no time for boyfriends; my career comes first.-- As it stood, this was a comma-splice sentence (a structural no-no), but I have fixed it by replacing the comma with a semicolon. We now have two independent clauses.

Does that help?

Anonymous · Answer

Yes, Mr. M. It helps a lot.

It kind of engendered some inquiries, though.

1. In your interview in the English-test.net website, you said:

From there, it didn't take much thought to realize that I could eliminate the middle man and start my own school, lucrative enough to make Japan a good place to stay.

What is this part grammatically?

2. In the nonfinite clause portion of the sentence "heart racing and gasping for air as your body's automatic nervous system tries to figure out why it isn't getting enough oxygen," would you say 'heart' is a noun and it can be replaced with any other contextually appropriate noun? Usually, I think a nonfinite clause should exihibit the pattern of "racing and gasping for air as your body's automatic nervous system tries to figure out why it isn't getting enough oxygen." (without what seems to be the noun part -- 'heart'.)

3. In the same interview, you wrote:

We were presented wtih an inside view of the workings of ETS TOEIC preparation and presentation, and offered an opportunity to try our hand at question-writing.

The word 'question-writing' is linked with a hyphen. What is the reason or rationale for this? I do feel that it is the construction is correct but hoping to get some ideas as to what is required for a noun to be formed like that. Maybe something like this?

an action star-wannabe

4. Sorry to ask so many questions but if you are willing, can you tell me what are some criteria (if there are any) for an adjective in quotation marks? How unusal the usage or use of a word or phrase or clause has to be in order to adorn itself with a pair of quotation marks?

Are these good?

I think Mr. M is an online celebrity.

I don't think Mr. M is an "off-line" celebrity.

Mister Micawber · Answer

1-- It looks like an adjective phrase-- or a very truncated adjective clause (no S and no V): my own school, [which would be] lucrative enough....

2-- The trouble is that the heart is racing, but something else (probably the person) is gasping for air. I would just write it off as a sentence adverbial without opening a further can of worms. You start to fall asleep...then wake up, [with your] heart racing and [you(r)] gasping for air....

3-- My rationale was that I felt it made it more immediately clear for the reader that 'question-writing' is a single specific task more specific than just 'writing questions'. The hyphen legitimatizes it as a formal job-- that was my thought, I think.

I find 'action star-wannabe' one of those impossible-to-hyphenate, all-or-nothing noun phrase problems. The person presumably wants to be not just a star, but an action star, so s/he's an action-star wannabe, it seems to me. But if then you have to convert it to an adjective-- An action-star-wannabe attitude-- things start getting out of hand. Recasting is called for.

4-- Hard to say how unusual is unusual, except this: it is presumed to be an unusual or unexpected use to the mind of the reader. Your example seems a good one to me.

What grammar parts are they?

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