It is possible, as we all know, to say those sentences below.
It was given to me by a kind woman.
I walked on the top of the building with my friend under a moon light.
One common point between those sentences is that the prepositional phrases are not connected by a conjunction.
It feels and sounds natural to me to hear and write those sentences, but when I apply my logic to it, it always feels that there should be a conjunction between those prepositional phrases as below.
It was given to me (and) by a kind woman. = It was given to me and
given by a kind woman.I walked on the top of the building (and) with my friend (and) under a
moon light. = I walked on the top of the building and walked with my
friend and walked under a moon light.
It seems that all those connected prepositional phrases are the product of coordinate ellipsis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordination_(linguistics)
So why isn't the conjunction used? Is certain grammar rule applied to it?
Best Answer
(original) It was given to me by a kind woman. (passive voice—using "by" makes it passive.)
A kind woman gave it to me. (same thought, but transformed to active voice)
The active voice phrasing has only one prepositional phrase ("to me".) The preposition "to" indicates the indirect object "me"; the direct object "it"needs no preposition.
I hope you can see that there is no logical need for (nor even a possibility of) a conjunction in the active voice construction, so there is likewise no logical need for a conjunction in the original construction.
Your example of the moonlight walk on top of the building uses a longer series of prepositional phrases.
Let's take a different example to see how this works:
The prepositional phrases attach consecutively, each preposition applying at its own level to link one noun logically to the next.
One can continue this indefinitely.
The A [of the B [in the C [by the D [of the E]]]]...
There is no need for a conjunction, because each noun has only one relation to the next one, which is fully specified by that preposition.
You might think of this as a stack, or a nest. The reader parses the multiple prepositional phrases by "unstacking" or "unwrapping" as indicated by the brackets, like evaluating a mathematical expression with parentheses. The nesting itself defines the relationships of the elements. Thus:
That's it. As we say... "No Ifs, Ands or buts about it!" http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/no+ifs+ands+or+buts+about+it
Or more accurately: No Ands or Ors. No conjunction needed. None possible. None "elided".
+++++++++ oh, by the way, it's more idiomatic to say "under the moonlight" or "by the light of the moon"