About participle construction
Having dinner ,I heard the phone rang.
I would like to know what the verb form and conjunction is in the sentence above.
I think they may be " when I had" or while I was having".
Am I right?
How about "when I was having"
Thanks in advance.
Top answer
We would more naturally say something like " When/while having dinner , I heard the bell ring". The analysis of the underlined expression is in fact quite problematic. One solution is to treat it as a PP, with the preposition "when/"while" as head and the non-finite subordinate content clause "having dinner" as its complement.
- We would more naturally say something like " When/while having dinner , I heard the bell ring".
- The analysis of the underlined expression is in fact quite problematic.
- One solution is to treat it as a PP, with the preposition "when/"while" as head and the non-finite subordinate content clause "having dinner" as its complement.
- If instead you say "When/While I was having dinner , I heard the bell ring", then the underlined is still a PP, but the complement is the declarative content clause "I was having dinner".
- Note that for those who treat "when" and "while" as a subordinating conjunctions, the when / while expressions are subordinate clauses of the type I outlined, but "when/"while" is then functioning as a 'marker' of subordination rather than head of a PP.
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We would more naturally say something like "When/while having dinner, I heard the bell ring".
The analysis of the underlined expression is in fact quite problematic. One solution is to treat it as a PP, with the preposition "when/"while" as head and the non-finite subordinate content clause "having dinner" as its complement.
If instead you say "When/While I was having din
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