Grammar Help, Please.

[abracanabra]

I can't find the correct terminology for this sentence construction, and it has been driving me mad! What is it called when you use a comma to join an independent and a dependent clause without a conjunction--correct only if they describe actions that switch tense from past to present.

For example, "She ran for the door, grabbing her purse as she went."

Would the second clause be a coordinate verb phrase?

I know this is rather technical, but it's bugging me a lot to not be able to use the correct terminology when noting incorrect use.

Comments

[prof-vencire.livejournal.com]

Well, there's Little Grammar and there's Big Grammar. Little Grammar is arbitrary, you can mash it up, leave it out, and no one gets confused. Big Grammar, on the other hand, needs to be there or nobody gets a damn thing. At a minimum, though, what matters is not the specific rules but the internal consistency and sense-making.

Language as a concrete thing always bugs me a bit, is all.

[cloudscudding.livejournal.com]

Shifting the level as you go through is also a fun thing, when done with malice aforethought.