With

Question

The Chinese government has signalled an end to the human consumption of dogs, with the agriculture ministry today releasing a draft policy that would forbid canine meat.

https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/09/china-signals-end-to-dog-meat-consumption-by-humans

Is "with the agriculture... meat" a prepositional phrase?

When do we use this type of preposition phrase with "with"?

Is the prepositional phrase functioning adverbially?

BillJ · Accepted Answer

The Chinese government has signalled an end to the human consumption of dogs, with the agriculture ministry today releasing a draft policy that would forbid canine meat.

Yes: "with" is a preposition so the underlined element is a preposition phrase.

"With" is typically used with the notion of accompaniment, as in Ed went into town with Liz where the PP "with Liz" is a comitative adjunct.

I'd certainly call the with PP in your example an adjunct (your adverbial), though I'm not entirely certain that it belongs to the comitative subtype, especially since comitative "with" takes noun phrases as complement, not clauses.

There's also a sense in which you could talk of result, so that's a possible alternative.

With

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