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Paper is made from many materials, the most important being trees.
It is from my TOEFL preparation book and I know what it means throughout seeing the translation in my language. But I don't understand that why it put 'being' after adjective which is important. I think that the meaning of sentence should be:
Paper is made from many materials and the important thing is trees.
not:
Being trees is important material for making paper.
Do you understand my question? Please help.
Paper is made from many materials, the most important being trees.
You're right about this:
I think that the meaning of sentence should be 'paper is made from many materials and the important thing is trees.'
But you're wrong about this:
I don't understand that why it put 'being' after adjective which is important.
Here, the most important is a noun phrase even without any noun in it, and the noun phrase acts as the subject of the participial clause "the most important being trees."
Paper is made from many materials, the most important being trees.
Above sentences are linked. First one says that paper are made from more than one material. So there should be multiple sources.(usually two or more). From that set of materials, Trees are the mostly used, often used material.
in the sentence, most important being trees , means, From the each material that can be used to make paper, Trees are the most common and widely used material.
If you say,
paper is made from many materials and the important thing is trees.
It means paper id made from few materials and trees are important for some related reason.
You are very close with this:
paper is made from many materials and the important thing is trees
To improve:
paper is made from many materials and the most important [material] is being trees
Present continuous is used because the action in not only generic, but it is still true while speaking.
After we lose is, we get the original sentence.
It can work equally well reversed (with slightly modified grammar):
paper is made from many materials, trees being the most important [material]
As to the why of this, maybe a better prepared friend can help.
This is an example of Reduced Relative Clauses. Remove the relative pronoun; remove the verb 'be'; Place the present participle phrase after the modified noun: 'Paper is made from many materials of which trees are the most important. '
