- •§ 164. According to their semantics we distinguish adverbial clauses of place, time, manner, comparison, condition, concession, purpose, cause, result.
- •§ 166. An adverbial clause of time characterizes the action expressed in the main clause from the temporal point of view. The action may be expressed by a finite or non-finite form of the verb.
- •I. Adverbial clauses of manner may modify the predicate of the main clause by attributing some quality to it.
- •II. They may refer to attributes or predicatives characterizing a state or quality of a person or non-person.
- •III. They may refer to an adverbial modifier, giving additional information or explanation concerning it.
- •§ 168. Adverbial clauses of comparison characterize the action expressed by the predicate in the main clause by comparing it with some real or hypothetical circumstance or action.
- •§ 169. Adverbial clauses of this type contain some condition (cither real or unreal) which makes the action in the main clause possible.
- •§ 170. Depending on the relation between the subordinate and the main clauses and on the use of tense and mood forms, complex sentences with conditional clauses may be subdivided into three types:
- •In the main clause In the subordinate clause
- •In the main clause In the subordinate clause
- •§ 171. A complex sentence with a conditional clause may be built on clauses of both type II and III, thus forming a mixed type of conditional relationship. For instance:
- •§ 174. Adverbial clauses of cause (or causative clauses) express the reason, cause, or motivation of the action expressed in the main clause or of its content as a whole.
- •§ 175. An adverbial clause of result denotes some consequence or result of the action expressed in the main clause. It may be introduced by the conjunction so that, or simply that.
§ 174. Adverbial clauses of cause (or causative clauses) express the reason, cause, or motivation of the action expressed in the main clause or of its content as a whole.
Causative clauses may be introduced by the conjunctions as, because, since, so, that, lest, seeing (that), considering; or by the composite conjunctions for the reason that, in view of the fact that, in so far as (insofar as), by reason of. Of these the conjunction as is preferable when the sentence opens with a clause of cause.
As he was tired he preferred to stay at home.
Since there is no help, let us try and bear it as best we can.
They went down arm-in-arm - James with Imogen, because his pretty grandchild cheered him.
In so far as it is difficult to assign an external cause to certain happenings, they are written off as uncaused or spontaneous.
As can be seen from the above examples, the causative clause may stand in preposition to the main clause, or follow it. It may also be embedded within the main clause, as in:
She loved to give, since she had plenty, and sent presentes here and there to Lilian, the children, and others.
Each of the conjunctions and conjunctive phrases expresses я certain shade of causative meaning, and so they are not always interchungcable. Because usually introduces clauses with the meaning of real cause. I his can be illustrated by the ability of beca use-clauses (but not others) to be included in questions. Thus it is correct to say:
Did you ask him because he was famous or for another reason?
But it is wrong to say: * Did you ask him since he was famous.,,?
Unlike because, the conjunctions since and as introduce clauses with an explanatory meaning, or else that of motivation.
Since you are here, we may begin our talk.
The other reason why causal conjunctions, though synonymous, are not always interchangeable with because, is that some of them are polyfunctional: as and since may be conjunctions of time, as well as of cause. For example:
His mood changed as they marched down to the clocks, (temporal relation)
In colloquial English a clause of cause may be joined rather loosely to a sentence which cannot be its main clause: Are you going to the post-office? - Because I have some letters to post. (I ask you this because I have some letters to post.)
The complex sentence with an adverbial clause of result (consequence)
§ 175. An adverbial clause of result denotes some consequence or result of the action expressed in the main clause. It may be introduced by the conjunction so that, or simply that.
Light fell on her there, so that Soames could see her face, eyes, hair, strangely as he remembered them, strangely beautiful.
Clauses with the correlatives so and such (so... that, such... that) may express manner with a shade of resultative meaning and are treated as such. However one should bear in mind that the line of demarcation between cases of so... that and so that is rather difficult to draw when the two words follow one another.