Dear Sir/ Madam
"Traditionally, the event relied on Hakka residents' donations, but with many having moved from Tai Hang, organisers had to rely on funding from elsewhere."
Could anyone tell me the grammatical role of the participle "having" in the clause, is it a participle adjective or an auxiliary verb? Can it be replaced by "have" ?
I do't think we have a gerund here,
'Many having moved' is a partciple clause (present perfect). 'With' here acts as a conjunction, in my opinion.
'With many having moved' - 'Because/as/since many had to move'
You seem to suggest that it is not possible to have two conjunctions in succession. You can: I don't dislike him because he smokes, but because he smokes a smelly pipe.
I agree that "with" almost always functions as a preposition. I am suggesting that it may be functioning as a conjunction in this example.
Last edited by 5jj; 19-Nov-2011 at 18:26. Reason: typo
My message indeed suggests that, although what you say is not what I meant. Sorry. I should have been more pprecise and specific.
Adverbials can be realized by different syntactical forms, eg., prepositional phrases, nonfinite clauses, etc. I think you already know that. "with" is clearly a preposition, and, given your status, I am stunned that you fail to realize that.
It may not!I am suggesting that it may be functioning as a conjunction in this example.![]()
When it comes to the nebulous class of adverbials, deductions made relying on meaning can play funny tricks on the unsuspecting victim.
I wrote in a previous post, "I agree that "with" almost always functions as a conjunction".
In "Many havingmoved from Tai Hang, organisers had to rely on funding from elsewhere", most would consider the underlined words to be a participle phrase; it functions as an absolute clause.
Putting 'with' in front of it complicates matters.
The words can be taken as the equivalent of "With the departure of many from Tai Hang", or of "As/since/because many had moved from Tail Hang". I agree that we cannot rely on meaning when analysing the function of words, but I don't think we can rely on parts of speech found in dictionaries, either. I am not very happy with my suggestion that 'with' may be functioning as a conjunction. Equally, I am not happy with the 'preposition + gerund' reading. Let's see what others have to say.