Although exhausted/being exhauated

Question

Although (exhausted/being exhausted), they felt elated.I should put exhausted or being exhausted in the sentence above?Thanks.

GPY · Accepted Answer

Although exhausted, they felt elated.
Although they were exhausted, they felt elated.

AlpheccaStars · Answer

Compare:

Being exhausted, they collapsed on the ground and didn't move.
Although they were exhausted, they felt elated.

CalifJim · Answer

eehao~~I should~~ Should I put "exhausted" or "being exhausted" in the sentence above?

Don't forget to invert the subject and verb in a question. When referring to words, use quotation marks.
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"Being exhausted" suggests that they felt elated because there were exhausted. That makes no sense. That turn of phrase is more at home thus:

Being exhausted, they fell asleep as soon as their heads hit the pillow.

CJ

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BillJ · Answer

eehao
Although (exhausted/being exhausted), they felt elated.
I should put exhausted or being exhausted in the sentence above?Thanks.

[1] Although exhausted, they felt elated.

[2] Although being exhausted, they felt elated.

Both are possible – it's a matter of personal preference, though [1] is probably more common.

“Although” is one of those prepositions that typically takes finite clause complements, but allows the complement to be reduced – either to a verbless clause, or else a participial one.

In [1] the complement is a reduced (verbless) clause. The subject and predicator (verb) are omitted leaving just the predicative complement. In full, it would be “Although they were exhausted, they felt elated”.

In [2] the complement is the participial (non-finite) clause “being exhausted”.

In both [1] and [2] the PP is functioning as a concessive adjunct, more specifically a supplement – a loosely attached optional element.

Although exhausted/being exhauated

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