Having been/ have been ???

Question

Hi Friends,Please assist me with the following sentences. In first sentence 3rd form of the verb used after 'having' while in second sentece 3rd from of the verb used after 'been'. 1).Having eaten an apple he went away.2).Having been beaten the servant ran away.The concept of both of these sentences made a bit complication for me to understand the time of the action like if the second sentence belongs to past or present. Hope to have a reply at ur earliest.Thanks,

Avangi · Accepted Answer

They're both in the same time frame. The difference is that one is passive voice and one is active voice.

Having been eaten by a lion, the king missed his appointment with the queen.

Having beaten the servant at chess, the king decided to celebrate.

The simple verbs in the main clauses are all simple past: went; ran; missed; decided.

In each sentence, the perfect participles describe an action which is completed before the main (past tense) action begins.

D_say · Answer

Thank you Avangi,

I am pleased to have your prompt response.

Can you put some light on the use of "HAVING" ?
I mean could you guide me further if I use of "Having..." and is there any structure that we could use in replacement of " Having....."?

and ...

"Having been eaten by a lion, the king missed his appointment with the queen." For instance if I would like to convert it into active voice, how should it be written?

Thank you again,

Avangi · Answer

We must take care not to confuse the two issues. The transitive action verb here is "to eat." The "have" and the "been" are just helpers, or "auxilliaries."

"Have" makes it "perfect," meaning the action has been completed.

"Been" makes it "passive voice," meaning the subject receives the action, rather than performing it.

Another complication exists because we're using the "-ing" form of the verb (present participle) rather than a simple tense, such as "he eats the food" (active voice); "the food is eaten by him (passive voice).

"He, having eaten the food, took a nap." (active voice) "The food, having been eaten by him, was slowly starting to be digested." (passive voice)

Notice that you can remove the "having" phrase from the sentence, and what you have remaining is a complete sentence by itself. Coming at the begining of the sentence as it does, the "having" phrase gives us additional information describing the main sentence, which follows. It will most likely describe the subject of the main sentence.

The thing about passive voice is that you can't always tell who or what is doing the acting.

Having been stabbed, the king was not feeling well.

If you wish to convert this to active voice, you need to make something up. Having stabbed the king, the intruder fled on horseback.

Having eaten the king, the lion took a nap.

When you perform a passive-to-active transformation, the subject and the object exchange places. If you wish to keep the original meaning, other things will have to change.

Since the lion ate the king, the king missed his appointment with the queen.

CalifJim · Answer

Maybe this little chart will help. Note the similarity of the participial form to the present perfect main verb shown below.

Active Passive

Main Verb Participial Form Main Verb Participial Form

have/has beaten having beaten have/has been beaten having been beaten
have/has eaten having eaten have/has been eaten having been eaten

Tom has beaten the servant. Having beaten the servant, Tom went away.
The servant has been beaten by Tom. Having been beaten by Tom, the servant went away.

Tom has eaten the apple. Having eaten the apple, Tom went away.
The apple has been eaten by Tom. Having been eaten by Tom, the apple was no longer available for Lucy to eat.

CJ

D_say · Answer

Dear Avangi and CJ.

Respected friends I am very thankful to you for your superb help.

grateful to both of you

best regards

d_say

Anonymous · Answer

Much simpler...

use "after eating" and "after being beaten"

D_say · Answer

Of course

Yup that is also what I learnt upto. special thanks to you friend

Keepsmiling · Answer

just one word to say thanks for such help---AWESOME WORK

Having been/ have been ???

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions