Reducing Adverb Clauses to Phrases (3 of 4) - Advanced English Grammar-

In the first part of this lesson,

we looked at adverb clauses of time,

and I showed you how to reduce them.

How to shorten the clauses to phrases.

We can also reduce adverb clauses of reason.

These clauses begin with words like because, as, since.

They answer the question why?

Again, we mostly use a present participle

(the -ing form of a verb)

to form these phrases.

That's because most of the time

we use active verbs.

Here's an example.

"Heard" is an active verb.

The mother did something.

She heard strange sounds.

"Because the mother heard strange sounds"

can be reduced.

Hearing strange sounds, the mother grew worried.

The steps should be familiar.

We don't need these subordinating conjunctions in the phrases.

They're understood.

Our new sentence:

Note how we use negative words

when we shorten adverb clauses to phrases.

It's quite simple.

Here's an example from the story.

Focus on the phrase.

Do you see the word order?

We put the negative word before the present participle.

It's that simple.

Now, can you understand what the full adverb clause would be?

If we wanted to change that phrase back to a full adverb clause of reason,

We need a subordinating conjunction.

- A word that expresses a reason.

Let's use BECAUSE.

Subject: she.

And a verb.

In this case, complete with a helping verb in the past tense.

Didn't feel.

Is that clear?

Up to now, I've only mentioned use of the present participle.

When we change an adverb clause to a phrase,

we sometimes need to use a past participle.

The -ed form of a regular verb.

It's that third form:

Do - did - done.

The third form.

And we'll do this for two reasons.

We may need to show an earlier time.

Or we may need to express a passive meaning.

Passive verbs emphasize that the subject is receiving an action.

Let me give you some examples.

Here's a line from the story.

This phrase actually expresses both a reason

and an earlier event.

The full adverb clause would be:

So we're changing an adverb clause with a perfect form.

We need to use HAVING

plus a past participle.

This form explains a sequence of events.

So when your adverb clause has a perfect verb form,

present or past,

use HAVING + a past participle.

This will show that you're referring to an earlier event.

Now, if I only wanted to emphasize

the order of events and not a reason,

I could just use a time word

and a present participle

and say something like this:

Compare those two sentences.

In the end, they're not that different.

We also need to use a past participle

when we have a passive verb in the adverb clause.

Passive means that someone or something is receiving an action.

Here's an example from the story.

What would the full adverb clause be?

It's an adverb clause of time.

"Was reassured" is a passive verb.

It's a form of BE plus a past participle.

Changing that to a phrase,

we keep both parts.

The form of BE takes the -ing form.

The present participle.

The main verb remains a past participle.

Now here's where it gets a little tricky.

We have variations.

This sentence could also be written as:

Why did she decide to investigate?

Some might choose to write:

Personally, I think this is a little too much.

The time word "after"

already establishes the order of events.

So the helping verb HAVE is really unnecessary.

Concise is usually best.

So consider this last variation.

All the sentences basically say the same thing.

But this last one is nice

because it's so concise.

We can remove all helping verbs

and use only the past participle,

understanding that it carries a passive meaning.

Something affected the mother.

She was reassured.

So now you know why you might need the help of a past participle.

But most of the time when you're changing an adverb clause to a phrase,

you'll be working with present participles.

You'll be changing clauses with active verbs.