Could someone explain the structure of the following paragraph? i am particularly interested in how the pharse "airport paving the way....." is constructured.
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"He expressed happiness that the MOCA had agreed in-principle for the construction of a regular/permanent terminal building at the Vijayawada airport paving the way for converting the one opened into a cargo centre on Thursday".
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"He expressed happiness that the MOCA had agreed in principle for the construction of a regular/permanent terminal building at the Vijayawada airport, paving the way for converting the one opened into a cargo centre on Thursday".
The sentence comprises a declarative clause reporting what the referent of "he" was happy about. Within the matrix clause is the underlined embedded subordinate clause which expresses the result of MOCA's agreement.
The subordinate non-finite clause "paving the way for converting the one opened into a cargo centre on Thursday" is called an adjunct, an optional element in clause structure. Adjuncts are used to express such notions as where, when, how, why etc., the situation in the main clause occurred (or occurs/will occur). In this case, the clause is a result adjunct since it expresses the result of MOCA's agreement in principle for the construction of a regular/permanent terminal building at the Vijayawada airport.
Note that it would be possible to insert the connective adverb "thus" to emphasise the 'resultive' nature of the subordinate clause that follows it.
"..., thus paving the way for converting the one opened into a cargo centre on Thursday".
Yes, to avoid it looking as though the subordinate paving clause is modifying (i.e. part of) the noun phrase "Vijayawada airport", which it isn't.
The paving clause is actually a supplementary adjunct, the kind that is usually set apart intonationally (in speech) from the rest of the clause by a slight pause, and marked off in writing by punctuation such as a comma, dash, or parentheses.