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  • Reducing an adverb clause

  • means shortening it to a phrase.

  • So to reduce an adverb clause of time,

  • we need a time word and a present participle.

  • That's the -ing form of the verb.

  • Look at this example.

  • The present participle has an active meaning,

  • so it's understood that the subject is doing the action.

  • We can only form a phrase from an adverb clause

  • if the subjects of the two clauses are the same.

  • Who fell asleep? I did.

  • Who began to have strange dreams? I did.

  • So the subjects are the same.

  • That's why we can use this phrase.

  • Look at this new sentence.

  • Can the adverb clause be reduced to a phrase?

  • No. The subjects are different.

  • Here's how you make an adverb clause a phrase.

  • And remember with that present participle

  • you're expressing an active meaning.

  • We don't always use a time word

  • when we shorten an adverb clause of time.

  • While is often omitted because it's understood.

  • Hopefully, you understand how I wrote this sentence in the story.

  • Let me point out that the full adverb clause

  • could be written a different way.

  • After "while" there could be a progressive verb:

  • "While two children were sleeping..."

  • That makes sense, too.

  • Again, the process would be the same.

  • We remove any helping verb.

  • - in this case a form of BE.

  • And our main verb is already a present participle.

  • So this makes our job easier.

  • When we change adverb clauses with progressive verbs,

  • just take out the form of BE

  • and keep the present participle.

  • I mentioned that we often omit "while"

  • when we create these phrases.

  • We sometimes omit "when," too.

  • I did this in the story.

  • Look at this example.

  • When is understood, so I left it out.

  • My story isn't very formal,

  • but in more formal English I could have written:

  • "Upon" is a time word that has the meaning of "when."

  • Let's talk for a moment about word order.

  • These phrases that act like adverbs

  • are usually in an initial position.

  • At the beginning of a sentence.

  • But they can also be in a final position.

  • Let's look at some examples.

  • Here are two lines from the story.

  • In both sentences, the phrase comes before the main clause.

  • Commas are generally used for separation.

  • Now compare those examples to these.

  • I have two more lines from the story.

  • In these two sentences, the phrase comes after the main clause.

  • Commas aren't always used for separation in this case.

  • In the first sentence, I chose not to use a comma.

  • The phrase is quite short.

  • In the second, we have a longer phrase.

  • Most writers would use a comma here.

  • It helps the reader to separate the two ideas.

  • I'd like you to try a very short exercise to test your understanding.

  • I'll give you three sentences.

Reducing an adverb clause

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