English Language & Usage Asked by Kodlee Yin on November 20, 2020
I contrived this sentence, but had a hard time explaining how to construct sentences of similar nature, the sentence being
He returned to the city from having travelled the world
Meaning, "[someone] has come back to the city; after the task [traveling the world] has completed"
I’m curious to know if this usage falls under a definition of from
, or if it’s incorrect grammar altogether.
My gut feeling was to define this phrase as the following:
[action] from having [prior action]
To mean
[action] after [prior action] has completed in its entirety
However, I’m a bit confused on if there are constraints between the [action] and [prior action] (for example, if the two must be related in some way).
Some additional example sentences
#1 sounds natural to me, 2 sounds somewhat awkward but acceptable, and 3 sounding fairly ridiculous (but acceptable).
The same is mirrored for 4, 5, and 6; however, would require additional context (ie. maybe the Apple was preventing me from being able to open the door).
Additional thoughts and resources are highly appreciated! — Thanks in advance.
Simply googling 'define from' returned a second definition being
indicating the point in time at which a particular process, event, or activity starts
So the usage of 'from' that you're using is acceptable semantically. There is the question of pragmatics, still, which would indicate that most of your example sentences don't really sound natural. In my personal opinion, I would reserve it for the past tense and avoid gerunds when using it, but I'm not exactly sure if they're ungrammatical.
Answered by Curtis Sheppard on November 20, 2020
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