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Chivalry Posted 13 years ago
Grammar

What kind of grammar is this

"He showed me the big vault where they used to keep the drugs, and told me how he got injections here, his stories tripping over one another."

Why is the verb "trip" in present form instead of just regular form?

Thanks in advance.
  

Top answer

tripping is a participle. The reduced clause (his stories tripping over one another) is a modifier, not a fully inflected clause. It describes how he was speaking.

— AlpheccaStars

  • tripping is a participle.
  • The reduced clause (his stories tripping over one another) is a modifier, not a fully inflected clause.
  • It describes how he was speaking.
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4 Answers
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tripping is a participle. The reduced clause (his stories tripping over one another) is a modifier, not a fully inflected clause. It describes how he was speaking.
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AlpheccaStarstripping is a participle. The reduced clause (his stories tripping over one another) is a modifier, not a fully inflected clause. It describes how he was speaking.
Thanks, never seen this usage before though. Would it be wrong to say "his stories tripped over one another" in this case?
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chivalryWould it be wrong to say "his stories tripped over one another" in this case?
It would be a separate sentence. eg.

He rattled on and his stories tripped over one another.
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Another way of looking at this - and which might be easier to understand - is that it is another of the thousands of situations in English where ellipsis is used for the sake of brevity or convenience. The complete wording would be: "...his stories were tripping over one another.", which is simply a past continuous construction. Over the years, in sentences like this, the word "were" was droppe
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