Okay so you can reduce adverb clauses. If this guy can on the video, you can.
Could you change these sentences to another more sophisticated structure?
While the police were driving, they were chasing one criminal.
Because they wanted to catch the criminal, they all decided to chase him.
Though they wanted to catch the criminal, they couldn’t catch him.
In this lesson, we are going to look at one of the sophisticated grammatical structures that you should have in the grammar of your writing; it is the reduction of adverb clauses. We’ll define the structure, identify the rules for reducing and understand how to create adverb clauses.
Definition. There are several ways to make adverb clauses more sophisticated. One of those ways is to reduce the adverb clause. Some textbooks will simply call this reducing adverb clauses. Because we can reduce 3 things in English, some textbooks will call all types of reduction participle phrases or participial phrases. I will refer to them as reducing adverb clauses.
Before we look at the rules, let me give you a warning. Some students will try to reduce by sound because some of them you can do in your own language or have heard the reduction before. The problem is that the students that do that don’t ever learn how to reduce all adverb clauses. They also can’t do it fast nor can they reduce other types of grammatical structures because they never learned how to reduce adverb clauses. So please learn these rules and don’t do it by sound.
Rules for Reducing. Let’s look at the rules for reducing adverb clauses.
1.The first rule is that you have to have the same subjects to reduce the adverb clauses.
Let’s look at an example.
While the dog was barking, the man was reading a newspaper. The subject of the clause is the dog and the subject of the main sentence is the man. If you reduced it, you would have this answer: While barking or barking, the man was reading a newspaper.
Obviously a man can’t bark like a dog unless he is crazy. So the first rule is you have to have the same subjects.
2.The second rules is to be vs. not to be. This is not to be or not to be as in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It is just a simple way to remember.
To be means (am/is/are/was/were). Not to be means anything that is not the words for to be. They are NOT am/is/are/was/were.
A.If the verb is simple present, past or future,
just delete the noun and verb delete the noun and change the verb to ing.
B. If the verb is the perfect tense, change the has or have to ing. The perfect tense here is present or past perfect. Let’s look at a quick example. Do you know the present perfect of study? Has/have studied. Do you know the past perfect of study? Had/studied. To reduce the perfect, you need to change has/have or had to having.
Now, let’s look at a few examples:
1.While the woman was cooking a turkey, she called 911 for help.
Remember our first rule is you have to have the same subjects. Do we?
Yes, we have the woman and she.
Now, we are reducing the adverb clause. Look at the verb.
Do you have the words for to be (am/is/are/was/were)? Yes, we do. We always reduce the subject
which is the woman and we reduce to be which is was.
So our answer is “While cooking a turkey, she called 911 for help.”
2.Let’s look at a second example that is similar.
While the woman was sitting in her car, she called 911 for help.
Remember our first rule is you have to have the same subjects. Do we?
Yes, we have the woman and she.
Now, we are reducing the adverb clause. Look at the verb.
Do you have the words for to be (am/is/are/was/were)? Yes, we do. We always reduce the subject
which is the woman and we reduce to be which is was.
Our answer is “While sitting in her car, she called 911 for help.”
3.Now, for a third example.
Though he wanted to buy a new phone, he decided that he should wait.
What’s our first rule? We need the same subjects. Do we have them? Yes. We have he for the clause
and the sentence.
Now what’s the second rule? To be or not to be. What is the verb in the clause?
Wanted. Is that to be or not to be? It’s not to be because to be is only these words:
am/is/are/was/were.
Now to be has 2 rules. Is the verb the simple tense or the perfect tense? It’s the simple tense so what do you need to do? Do you remember? You change the verb to the ing form and you always delete the subject. So we change wanted to wanting and delete he. The answer is “Though wanting to buy a new phone, he decided that he should wait.”
So before we go to our final rule, rule 3, let’s quickly review. What is rule 1? Same subjects What is
rule 2? To be or not to be. There are 2 parts to not to be. Do you remember the 2 parts? The first part
is if there is the simple tense you change the verb to the ing form. The second part is if there is the
perfect tense you change the has/have or had to having.
The third rule is keep or delete. What are we keeping or deleting? We are keeping or deleting the subordinating conjunction, the word that begins the adverb clause.
So what are those rules?
Let’s start with the easy rules first.
You always keep unexpected result (although/though/even though).
You always delete cause or reason (because/as/due to the fact that).
Now the more complicated rule has to deal with the words for time.
KEEP: You keep before and since.
DELETE: You delete as.
DOESN'T MATTER: When and while don’t matter. You can keep or delete them.
WEIRD ONES: There are two weird ones: as soon as and after.
You delete as soon as to on or upon. Why do you do that? As soon as means immediately. You need to add on or upon so you will keep the meaning of immediately.
For after, you have 3 choices. Let’s look at an example because it is easier to understand with an example. “After I finish class, I am going to get some water to drink.” There are 3 choices: 1) After finishing class, I am going to get some water to drink, 2) Having finished class, I am going to get some water to drink and 3) After having finished class, I am going to get some water to drink.
We can put them altogether with these rules:
Keep: before/since/although/though/even though
Delete: as/because/since/as/due to the fact that
Doesn’t matter: when or while
2 weird ones: as soon as and after
Let’s end with a quick reminder of our 3 rules:
What’s rule 1? Same subjects
What’s rule 2? To be or not to be and don’t forget the not to be has 2 parts.
What’s rule 3? Keep or delete.
Let’s do some practice.
1.When you learn about American humor, you will learn that one way that we achieve a sarcastic sense of humor is to stereotype.
2.Because we think that American football players are stupid, we stereotype them. (Here is an example: http://cmgm.stanford.edu/~lkozar/FootballExam.html)
3.While you were reading those examples, you probably laughed.
4.After you read those examples, you might also realize other groups that we stereotype.
5.Though most women with blonde hair are smart, we stereotype them as dumb.
6.While you are thinking about stereotypes, you might also want to know that we create a sarcastic sense of humor by taking a common situation and going extreme.
To get the answers to this practice, please comment here and I will post those answers.
In this lesson, we gave a definition for reducing adverb clauses and we identified the rules for reducing adverb clauses. We also did some practice in understanding how to reduce adverb clauses.