Основы теоретической грамматики английского языка

 
FOUR GROUPS OF ADVERBIAL CLAUSES. 
The whole system of adverbial clauses is to be divided into four groups. 
The first group includes clauses of time and clauses of place. Their common semantic 
basis is to be defined as "localization" - respectively, temporal and spatial. Both types of clauses 
are subject to two major subdivisions, one concerning the local identification, the other 
concerning the range of functions. 
The second group of adverbial clauses includes clauses of manner and comparison. The 
common semantic basis of their functions can be defined as "qualification", since they give a 

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qualification to the action or event rendered by the principal clause. The identification of these 
clauses can be achieved by applying the traditional question-transformation test of the how-type, 
with the corresponding variations of specifying character. Cf.: 
He spent the Saturday night as was his wont. > How did he spend the Saturday night? 
You talk to people as if they were a group. > How do you talk to people? I planned to give my 
mother a length of silk for a dress, as thick and heavy as it was possible to buy. > How thick and 
heavy the length of silk was intended to be? 
All the adverbial qualification clauses are to be divided into "factual" and "speculative", 
depending on the real or unreal prepositional event described by them. 
The third and most numerous group of adverbial clauses includes "classical" clauses of 
different circumstantial semantics, i.e. semantics connected with the meaning of the principal 
clause by various circumstantial associations; here belong clauses оf attendant event, condition, 
cause, reason, result (consequence), concession, purpose. Thus, the common semantic basis of 
all these clauses can be defined as "circumstance". The whole group should be divided into two 
subgroups, the first being composed by clauses of "attendant circumstance"; the second, by 
clauses of "Immediate circumstance". 
The fourth group of adverbial clauses is formed by parenthetical or insertive 
constructions. Parenthetical clauses, as has been stated elsewhere, are joined to the principal 
clause on a looser basis than the other adverbial clauses; still, they do form with the principal 
clause a syntactic sentential unity, which is easily proved by the procedure of diagnostic 
elimination. Cf.: 
Jack has called here twice this morning, if I am not mistaken. > Jack has called here 
twice this morning.