Absolute Clause / adverbial Clause

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rajan

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Is there any difference in meaning between these two sentences ?

1) With the ministry yet to revert, CBI sources said they would soon send a reminder to it (ministry). (Absolute Clause)

2) As ministry has not yet reverted, CBI sources said they would soon sent a reminder to it (ministry). (Adverbial Clause)

If there is no difference, could anybody please tell me what is the use of absolute clause.


Regards

Rajan
 

bhaisahab

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Is there any difference in meaning between these two sentences ?

1) With the ministry yet to revert, CBI sources said they would soon send a reminder to it (ministry). (Absolute Clause)

2) As ministry has not yet reverted, CBI sources said they would soon sent a reminder to it (ministry). (Adverbial Clause)

If there is no difference, could anybody please tell me what is the use of absolute clause.


Regards

Rajan

#2 is incorrect. #1 would be improved if you deleted "to it".
 

rajan

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Thanks,

1) Can the sentence at #2 be written as:

Having received no reply yet from the ministry, CBI sources said they would send a reminder. (Adverbial Clause)

2) Would you please tell me why it would be wrong to add "to it" in the sentence.

Regards


#2 is incorrect. #1 would be improved if you deleted "to it".
 
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5jj

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Your new letter is much more natural. We do not use 'revert' in that sense in BrE, though I believe it is normal and correct in Indian English.

'To it' is not exactly wrong, but it is unnecessary. It is clear who the reminder is going to be sent to. If you really wanted to add this information, it would be more natural as Having received no reply yet from the ministry, CBI sources said they would send them a reminder. We prefer to use an indirect object rather than the preposition 'to' with pronouns. In British English we tend to use 'they/them' rather than 'it' - we are thinking of the people in the ministry rather than the ministry itself.
 

rajan

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Actually, I had read the sentence no. 1 in the newspaper. This sentence was written in the running matter of the news. It was not the headline. I wondered why the journalist made such a sentence, why he has not made the sentence like at number 2.

Would you please kindly tell me what is the advantage of sentence number 1 (absolute clause) over sentence no. 2 ? Does the meaning imply in sentence no. 1 also reflect in sentence number 2.

Thanks and regards,

Rajan
 

bhaisahab

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Actually, I had read the sentence no. 1 in the newspaper. This sentence was written in the running matter of the news. It was not the headline. I wondered why the journalist made such a sentence, why he has not made the sentence like at number 2.

Would you please kindly tell me what is the advantage of sentence number 1 (absolute clause) over sentence no. 2 ? Does the meaning imply in sentence no. 1 also reflect in sentence number 2.

Thanks and regards,

Rajan

2) As ministry has not yet reverted, CBI sources said they would soon sent a reminder to it. This is wrong because a) an article is needed before "ministry" and, b) "sent" is the wrong tense.
 

rajan

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Thanks for your patience. I am really sorry that my above post created confusion. I was talking about the below mentioned sentences in my previous post. After teacher 5jj's suggestions and your suggestions, sentence number two was improved while sentence number one was picked up from the newspaper. So I wondered why the journalist made such a sentence, why he has not made the sentence like at number 2.

Would you please kindly tell me what is the advantage of sentence number 1 (absolute clause) over sentence no. 2 ? Does the meaning imply in sentence no. 1 also reflect in sentence number 2.

1) With the ministry yet to revert, CBI sources said they would soon send a reminder to it
2) Having received no reply yet from the ministry, CBI sources said they would send them a reminder.


Regards


2) As ministry has not yet reverted, CBI sources said they would soon sent a reminder to it. This is wrong because a) an article is needed before "ministry" and, b) "sent" is the wrong tense.
 
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5jj

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I wondered why the journalist made such a sentence, why he has not made the sentence like at number 2.
Only the journalist can answer that question, and s/he might not be able to tell you.. There is very often more than one way in which a situation can be described. (I might have said "There are often several ways in which we can describe a situation, but I didn't. I don't know why).
Would you please kindly tell me what is the advantage of sentence number 1 (absolute clause) over sentence no. 2 ? Does the meaning imply in sentence no. 1 also reflect in sentence number 2.
There is no obvious advantage. In fact, in my opinion, the sentence is less satisfactory to speakers of BrE, for reasons which I have already explained. The meaning is the same. Perhaps the journalist felt that the "with the ... yet to" phrasing was more appropriate in journalism. We'll never know.
 
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