“. . .when you’re on the train home tomorrow, you’re so -”
But
what they were, they didn’t find out. Hermione had turned to the
portrait of the Fat Lady to get back inside and found herself facing
an empty painting. The Fat Lady had gone on a nighttime visit and
Hermione was locked out of Gryffindor tower
(Harry Potter and
the Sorcerer’s Stone)Is the prepositional phrase a predicative expression over the Fat Lady, or an adverbial modifying the verb?
Answer
It’s not exactly either. Go on a visit or go visiting or make a visit are stock constructions for expressing the verb visit, which is transitive, without a specific direct object.
Its use here may reflect the fact that who the Fat Lady is visiting is unknown and irrelevant to the narrative, or it may express the notion that the Fat Lady is visiting the bathroom — we are not well informed about the metabolism of animate portraits.
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : Listenever , Answer Author : StoneyB on hiatus
