being

Lucky   Tue Dec 27, 2005 4:34 pm GMT
"Yet other languages enjoy an international role, English perhaps being the best example of this at the moment."


In "English perhaps being", why "being" instead of "is"?
How does 'being' work?
Guest   Tue Dec 27, 2005 5:04 pm GMT
I suppose "perhaps being" could quite easily be replaced by "is perhaps" in this sentence (but you'd need to replace the comma with a period or semicolon).
Lazar   Wed Dec 28, 2005 2:45 am GMT
In that sentence I believe <<English perhaps being the best example of this at the moment>> is an example of a nominative absolute. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_absolute