‘with giving me a big hug’

Question

Hello, everyone,“She stood there chatting with her friend, with her child playing beside her.”I understand the underlined part above is called “with absolute construction”, which is used when the subject in the construction is different from the one in main clause.By the way, when I see two sentences below in our local material, I think their construction is different from the one above, since they lack the nouns acting as an independent subjects;1) My mother welcomed me [with giving me a big hug].2) She always jogs in the morning [with listening to music].I wonder if the two sentences including ‘with’ above are grammatically correct or not. If not, I think they should be amended into a adverbial participle clause by deleting ‘with’ as below;1-1) My mother welcomed me, [giving me a big hug].2-2) She always jogs in the morning, [listening to music].Your opinions would be much appreciated.

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

deepcosmos
“She stood there chatting with her friend, with her child playing beside her.”
I understand the underlined part above is called “with absolute construction”, which is used when the subject in the construction is different from the one in main clause.

Correct.

deepcosmos
By the way, when I see two sentences below in our local material, I think their construction is different from the one above, since they lack the nouns acting as an independent subjects;
1) My mother welcomed me [with giving me a big hug].
2) She always jogs in the morning [with listening to music].

Yes. That's a different construction, and it sounds completely wrong. I would not advise that anyone imitate this.

deepcosmos
I wonder if the two sentences including ‘with’ above are grammatically correct or not. If not, I think they should be amended into a adverbial participle clause by deleting ‘with’ as below;
1-1) My mother welcomed me, [giving me a big hug].
2-2) She always jogs in the morning, [listening to music].

No, those you showed earlier in your post are not correct. They should be amended as you have shown here if you want to keep the participle clauses. Still, you can do even better than those if you use other constructions:

My mother welcomed me with a big hug.
She always listens to music during her morning jogs.

Just because participle clauses are considered more advanced grammatical constructions doesn't mean that including them in a sentence is always the best way to write. (I know this doesn't apply here because they are not your sentences anyway, but I thought I'd mention this.)

CJ

‘with giving me a big hug’

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