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A phrase is a group of words that forms a unit simpler than a sentence. A phrase does not contain a finite (conjugated) verb.
Most phrases modify a particular word in a sentence. However, an absolute phrase modifies an entire sentence instead of a single word:
Unlike an ordinary phrase, the birds having flown off does not modify any word in the rest of the sentence, such as cat or climbed. This type of phrase is called absolute because it is self-contained: it usually has its own subject (in this case, birds) and does not need to attach to any word in the sentence.
Absolute phrases can have any of the structures shown below.
Some participle and infinitive phrases are common expressions that are considered absolute. Since they do not need to attach to a particular word, they can be placed at the beginning (or end) of a sentence without dangling. Here are some examples:
As the above examples show, an absolute phrase is set off with a comma (or with a pair of commas if it occurs in the middle of the sentence).
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