"The autonomy of the organizations emanates from national law, with each state determining its extent."
What is the function of "with" in the above sentence? To specify? Is there a grammatical term for this function?
Thanks.
*****
NOT A TEACHER *****
(1) I have found some more information.
(2) The famous grammarian Otto Jespersen (whose first language was
not English!!!) reminds us that the use of "with" in such sentences
"means virtually the same thing as
having."
(a) His example:
She came the whole length of the immense room, with everyone
looking at her.
(i) I guess (guess!!!) your sentence could be reworded something like:
The autonomy emanates from national law, having each state determine its
extent.
(3) Our friend Bryan A. Garner seems to be rather unhappy with this kind
of construction.
(a) He likes:
Jacobson/He being absent, the party was a bore.
(i) He calls this a nominative absolute. It is not grammatically linked to
the main sentence. The whole phrase adverbially modifies some verb.
(I guess he means that the above sentence is a short way to say:
Because/since Jacobson/He was absent, the party was a bore.)
(b) He does
not like adding "with." He says that "With Jacobson
absent, the party was a bore" is not a nominative absolute. He calls it
an "objective absolute," presumably because it is the object of the
preposition "with." (A real nominative absolute always has the subject
in the nominative case. His example:
He being absent, ...)
(c) And he really dislikes changing "He being absent...." to the
possessive "His being absent...."
(d) He also has this to say about "with."
(i) "
With is increasingly being used as a quasi-conjunction [Is that
why Professor Quirk chooses to call it a subordinator?] to introduce a tag-
on idea at the end of the sentence. The sense is close to
and." [Very
interesting!!!]
He then adds: "Avoid this sloppy construction."
He gives an example that does not please him.
It concerns Australian politics:
Labor has an edge on unemployment,
with the Coalition considered
better able to handle the environment.
He suggests that it should read something like:
Labor has an edge on unemployment; the Coalition is considered
better able to handle the environment.
It is
only my guess that he might suggest that your sentence read:
The autonomy emanates from national law; each state determines
its extent.
Personally, with all due respect to Mr. Garner, I prefer
your
original sentence.
I guess the most interesting point is that this use of "with"
=
and.
That is,
The autonomy of the organizations emanates from national law,
and each state determines its extent.
I think the sentence using "with" is better because it does
not give
equal weight to both parts of the sentence, as does a compound
sentence with "and." You simply want to tell people that the
autonomy of the organizations emanates from national law
PERIOD
(Then you add the extra information that each state determines its
extent. It is something like P.S.)
*****
NOT A TEACHER *****
