Arrived at the spot, the party lost no time in getting to work.

[diamondcutter]

Arrived at the spot, the party lost no time in getting to work.

Source: The Semantic variability of Absolute Constructions, Gregory T. Stump

I looked up the verb “arrive” in several dictionaries and it is labeled as an intransitive verb in all of them. But in the sentence above, I think “arrived” is used as a transitive verb, meaning “transported”. What do you say?

 

[5jj]

It's intransitive. A transitive meaning would be followed by 'to', not 'at'.

Like many of the absolute constructions you find, this one would be produced by few native speakers.

 

[diamondcutter]

I see it’s a wrong sentence. I just couldn’t imagine it would be a mistake in an academic book and this example sentence comes from another scholar’s book.I see it’s a wrong sentence.

 

[5jj]

I didn't say it was wrong. I said it would be uttered by few native speakers.

 

[diamondcutter]

I see. That "arrived" should be a past participle. Am I right?

 

[emsr2d2]

I'm with 5jj on this. Regardless of the grammatical possibility of the original, native speakers would say "Having arrived at the ...".

 

[probus]

Diamondcutter, this illustrates what we mean when we use the word "natural". There are countless grammatically correct constructions that would never be uttered by a native speaker.

On a personal note I suffer from this problem when I try to speak Spanish in Mexico. The Mexicans understand me, but they would never express themselves using some of the phrases I cobble together.