Question

Identify the underlined element in the following passage from the novel Bleak House by Charles Dickens.

"Fog everywhere. Fog flowing up the river, among green banks and meadows; fog rolling down the river, where it hangs defiled among the ships and buildings of a great (and dirty) city."

A. Infinitive Phrase
B. Prepositional Phrase
C. Sentence Fragment
D. Absolute Phrase

(The underlined phrase is "Fog Flowing up the river,")

Answer 1

D. absolute phrase because a absolute phrase does not directly connect or modify any specific word.

Answer 2

The correct answer is D. absolute phrase.

Let's use the system of elimination here:

A is incorrect because there are no infinitives in this phrase. An infinitive looks like this: to look, to sing, to dance, to sleep, etc.

B is incorrect because the prepositional phrase is only up the river - but not the entire phrase.

C is incorrect because the phrase doesn't have a finite verb - in order for it to be a sentence fragment (aka a dependent clause), it has to contain a finite verb.

Therefore, the correct answer is D. An absolute phrase is a phrase that doesn't contain a finite verb, but does contain a participle (flowing up).