Having lost

Question

"Delhi were struggling having lost a few wickets, he was involved in a couple of runouts and to come out and play like that for a young player was remarkable," he hailed.
Pant is the future, says Ganguly
Is "having lost a few wickets" a participial phrase acting as an adverb as it answers the "why question"?

Englishmaven · Accepted Answer

Yes. Nice analysis.

CalifJim · Answer

Jigneshbharati"Delhi were struggling having lost a few wickets, he was involved in a couple of runouts and to come out and play like that for a young player was remarkable," he hailed.

To begin with, the sentence is a little defective. The most serious defect is that it's a "comma splice".

Either it's

"Delhi were struggling having lost a few wickets. He was involved in a couple of runouts, and to come out and play like that for a young player was remarkable," he hailed.

Or it's

"Delhi were struggling. Having lost a few wickets, he was involved in a couple of runouts, and to come out and play like that for a young player was remarkable," he hailed.

If it's all to be one sentence, it needs a subordinator of some kind at the beginning. Two possible examples follow.

While Delhi were struggling, having ... wickets, he was ...
Since Delhi were struggling, having ... wickets, he was ...

But we can't add those because this is a direct quote, so we just have to conclude that either what was said was not correct or the newspaper editor punctuated it incorrectly.

JigneshbharatiIs "having lost a few wickets" a participial phrase acting as an adverb as it answers the "why question"?

That's one way of describing it. Lately the terminology seems to be changing to "participle clause", and there is little interest in any talk of "acts as an adverb". It is becoming preferable to say of the participle clause that "It is a supplement".

CJ

Having lost

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions