a dialect using just participle?

[Amy West]

Folks,

I read this list to make myself more informed and knowledgeable.

Last semester I had a student in my EN 101 class who consistently
wrote what I thought were fragments -- using the present participle
by itself as the verb for a sentence.

Now, finally, I'm reading the handbook (Longman Writer's Companion)
and in their discussion of the progressive & perfect tenses they
identify as a dialect example this:

The interview starting five minutes late.
(They analyze it as omitting _is_ in _is starting_.)

I've never run across this dialectical variant. Now I feel really
stupid for thinking that my student was stupid.

Have other folks seen this construction?

---Amy West

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