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I got two sentences that sound similar and correct in some sense. One of them however should be wrong:

"I accompanied him here because his health was not good at that time."

"I accompanied him here because of his health was not good at that time."

Most sources indicate that because of should be used with a 'ing verb' following it. This source suggests that because of can be used in conjunction with "illness" which to my knowledge is not even a verb. My reasoning for why the second example is correct lies in the fact that "health" is the antonym of "illness" and would act symmetrically.

One reason why example 1 to be correct is that it contains a subject ("his health") and a verb ("was") following because.

Can both these forms be grammatically correct or is one wrong?

LPH
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Silver Flash
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2 Answers2

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Because of needs a noun phrase, as the link you refer to explains. ...Because of his health not being good at the time would be grammatical, but sounds clumsier than your first sentence.

Kate Bunting
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  • In other words, the verbatim example in my question is wrong either way because it is missing a noun phrase? Or to the fact that the sentence is followed by a complete clause. – Silver Flash Sep 21 '20 at 15:27
  • Your second sentence is wrong because a noun or noun phrase is needed after because of. We would say Because he was ill (clause) or because of his illness (noun). – Kate Bunting Sep 21 '20 at 15:35
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The second sentence is not correct. It becomes correct once you remove the preposition "of", which results in the first sentence, which is correct.

Addition

"Because" is a conjunction, therefore it is used to introduce clauses. "Because of" is a preposition and that means that it introduces noun phrases and verb phrases. Therefore, you could say "I accompanied him here because of his health being not good at that time." as "his health being bad is a nominal clause (functions like a noun).

  • He si sick because of he went out in the cold.
  • He is sick because of his going out in the cold.
LPH
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  • could you give a reason? I'm also curios as to why my explanation for the second sentence is wrong. – Silver Flash Sep 21 '20 at 15:18
  • @SilverFlash I just added something to the answer. If anything is still not clear I'll try to clarify things for you. – LPH Sep 21 '20 at 16:18