having eaten/after

[Maybo]

I am trying to understand the usage of "having eaten". Here are what I think:

Having eaten an apple, she went to the bathroom.
=1. After she ate an apple, she went to the bathroom.
=2. She had eaten an apple when she went to the bathroom.

Do I understand it correctly?

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

I am trying to understand the usage of "having eaten". Here are what I think:

Having eaten an apple, she went to the bathroom.-

This implies that she went to the bathroom because she ate an apple. The apple was the reason she went to the bathroom.

=1. After she ate an apple, she went to the bathroom.

This just tells us the order in which she did two separate things. First, she ate an apple, then she went to the bathroom.

=2. She had eaten an apple when she went to the bathroom.

To be natural, this would require an unusual context. It's grammatical but not likely.

Do I understand it correctly?

I don't know.

Having done one thing, she can now do another.

If she had not done the first thing, she could not yet do the second.

 

[Maybo]

Having done one thing, she can now do another.

If she had not done the first thing, she could not yet do the second.

Am I correct now?

Having been hit by a car, John went to the hospital.
= John was hit by a car so he went to the hospital.

 

[jutfrank]

I think Charlie Bernstein has pointed out well that your trying to understand this structure in terms of sequencing alone is insufficient. What you're missing, in my opinion, is the logic that connects the two clauses, which is often, but not necessarily, that the participle clause is causally related to the main clause as well as being temporally prior.

Having been hit by a car, John went to the hospital.
= John was hit by a car so he went to the hospital.

In this particular example, I think that's right, yes. Another way to express the idea is Since John had been hit by a car, he went to the hospital. But bear in mind that this construction does not always have this logic.

 

[Maybo]

I found a sentence:
Having finished the honeydew, the Reb and I moved to his office, where the boxes, papers, letters, and files were still in a state of chaos.
(Have a Little Faith by Mitch Albom)

I feel the underlined part doesn't really imply the reason why they moved to the office. Is it another way of using "having been"?

 

[GoesStation]

I found a sentence:
Having finished the honeydew, the Reb and I moved to his office, where the boxes, papers, letters, and files were still in a state of chaos.
Have a Little Faith by Mitch Albom)

I feel the underlined part doesn't really imply the reason why they moved to the office. Is it another way of using "having been"?

It doesn't use having been, so the answer is "no". It describes a new possibility: they'd finished the melon, so they were now able to move into the office.

 

[Maybo]

This could imply reason. The Reb (Rabbi) possibly never ate in his office. Once the honeydew had been eaten, they were able to move into the office. It is very difficult to be sure about such implications with only a single sentence to work on.

The next sentence is:
Had he felt better, we might have gone for a walk, because he liked to walk around his neighborhood, although he admitted not knowing his neighbors so well these days.

 

[probus]

I was taught at school that the construction "past participle {something}" as an explation for what occurs next has its origin in Latin and should be avoided in English. I've long since abandoned most such rules, but still adhere to that one.

 

[emsr2d2]

I wouldn't automatically take "Having eaten an apple, she went to the bathroom" to mean that eating an apple caused her to go to the bathroom. That's such an unlikely situation, that it probably wouldn't cross my mind. I would simply read it as "She ate an apple and the next thing she did was go to the bathroom".