Friday January 6, 2006
Unfortunate example
Guy Perring writes that the most common way to join sentences is with the correct conjunction (Dec 29).
As an example, he gives the following sentence: “The company went bankrupt because of a huge drop in sales” — and goes on to explain that the “because” clause comes after the main clause.The example given is unfortunate.
If it had been rephrased as, say, “The company went bankrupt because there had been a huge drop in sales”, I would agree that there is a main clause followed by a because clause (the subordinate clause).
The example given is actually a simple sentence; there are no two clauses; and the word “because” is not a conjunction but is part of the phrasal preposition “because of”, which is equivalent to another phrasal preposition “owing to”, or to that other phrasal preposition that is becoming increasingly accepted – “due to”.
On another matter, the caption for a photograph in The Star on Dec 9 reads: “WE DID IT: Annuar (third from right), Hanafi (second from right) and several trishaw peddlers celebrating the Barisan’s win in Pasir Mas yesterday.”
Did the reporter report factually? Have the trishaw peddlers – who used to earn their living by pedalling trishaws to ferry passengers – now changed their profession to peddling (selling) trishaws? – Dr Lim Chin Lam, Penang
A clause needs a verb
THANKS to Mr Perring for his insightful discussion on the usage of “as”, “since” and “because” (Dec 29). This is particularly important since this kind of usage is not really discussed in the classroom.
However, I have a problem with this sentence cited by Mr Perring – “The company went bankrupt because of a huge drop in sales.” – after which he says, “The because clause comes after the main clause ... “
In my opinion, “because of a huge drop in sales” is NOT a clause. The construction is merely an adverb phrase (of reason) which is introduced by “because of”.
In order for it to be a clause, it has to contain a finite verb which is clearly missing in the above construction. The following rephrased construction contains a “because” clause:
“The company went bankrupt because there was a huge drop in sales.”
In the above instance, there are two clauses – independent or main (The company went bankrupt) and dependent (because there was a huge drop in sales). Note that the two clauses contain a finite verb in each.
I would advice people to be careful about using terms when discussing something as theoretical and technical as linguistics. – Mahid bin Masseluang, Labuan
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