Having the right hand ....

[dkpbus]

Having the right hand and arm being crippled by a sniper's bullet
during tha first world war, Horace Pippin, a Black American
painter, worked by holding the brush in his right hand and guiding
its movements with his left.

A ..
B In spite of his right hand and arm being crippled by a sniper's bullet during the first world war
C Because there had been a sniper's bullet during the first world war that crippled his right hand and arm
D Te right hand and arm being cripled by a sniper's bullet during the first world war
E His right hand and arm crippled by a sniper's bullet during the first world war


Why the answer is E.?
?

[Erin]

Why do you think that E is not a good answer? Can you see anything wrong with it?

If you can tell me some of your reasoning, I can point you in the right direction.

For example, there's a big difference between A and D as second best answer choices, and if you can narrow it down a bit for me, i.e., make your question a bit more specific, it'll be easier for me to answer.

[dkpbus]

The reason I'm confused is because E sounds a bit odd to me. In A first clause strongly modifies the noun 'Horace Pippin'. In E first clause doesn't seems subordinate clause or dependent clause to main clause. It seems an independent clause. In A I think 'Having' acts as a good conjunction to join two clauses. Although E is grammatically sound but my ears are not trusting it.

[Erin]

Thanks for your clarification. I think I can help you now.

First of all, A has the dreaded "being," which is usually wrong (and always wrong when used like this). And even if we change the sentence thus:

Having the right hand and arm being crippled by a sniper's bullet during tha first world war

A) would still have another dreaded pattern:

have + noun + adjective (which modifies the noun)

having + his right hand + broken (which modifies the his right hand)

So E is clearly our best choice.

BTW, if you want to learn more about phrases like this, check out this page on absolute phrases (what these are called). I hope to be able to write my own reference, but for now, I don't have the time.

http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/phrases.htm#absolute

HTH

[Yazynin]

O.K. May I voice my opinion if you don't mind?

E does not have predicate: "His...hand and arm...crippled by a ...bullet". There should be "were" somewhere, I think: "His...hand and arm...WERE crippled by a ...bullet"
- OR -
in case there is no predicate in this part, it must start from the gerund phrase, like A: "Having...hand and arm being crippled..."
Frankly speaking, I personally do not like "being" in A, but there are no other variants.

[Erin]

Did you see the link above for absolute phrases? There's a pretty good, if somewhat brief explanation of them there.

If E had a verb, it'd be WRONG--remember, two verbs would necessarily need a conjunction between them, and E has no conjunction. And, if you add a conjunction, you end up with two sentences, and now the whole thing has changed!

I think you should read the info in the link above. I will try to write up some explanations in the future, but for the next few days, I'm extremely busy.

HTH

[dkpbus]

Thanks a lot Erin. You're great!!! I was stumped by this problem. But now I got the crack. Thanks once again..

DKP