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The Sun is a large object, having a diameter of nearly a million miles. [correct]
The Sun is a large object, while having a diameter of nearly a million miles. [incorrect]

I am wondering the reason for being considered correct or incorrect.

Would you possibly explain why we cannot use while?

I really do appreciate what you taught me.

Nevertheless, I think the second one is just semantically incorrect, while grammatically correct, isn't it?

Meanwhile, as we know one of the usage of while is to be at the same time, so what about the following? if these are correct, so why don't we use while?

The Sun is a large object, while having a diameter of nearly a million miles.

The sun is a large object and it is having a diameter of nearly a million miles.

The sun is a large object and it has a diameter of nearly a million miles.

The sun is a large object which is having a diameter of nearly a million miles.

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  • The second of the three examples you added after your question was answered is ungrammatical--have here is stative and can't be used in the progressive. The first is also strange.
    – user230
    Jul 29, 2014 at 0:52
  • @snailplane "having" can be used: "she is having a baby". It just can't be used here because it disagrees in tense with "is". With verb agreement, the sentence would be "The sun is a large object and it has a diameter of nearly a million miles." If for some reason the current state of the sun were odd, and you wanted to emphasize how it is right now, you could say "The sun is being a large object and it is having a diameter of nearly a million miles (oh no we are all going to die!)".
    – Phil Frost
    Jul 29, 2014 at 10:20
  • @snailplane though on a second reading, I guess this is what you meant to say: we are making a stative statement about the sun, so a progressive verb makes no sense. Not that there's some grammatical rule against using stative verbs as progressive verbs.
    – Phil Frost
    Jul 29, 2014 at 10:23
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    @PhilFrost Yes, there is a grammatical rule against stative progressives. That's why I wrote "here"--have is not always stative.
    – user230
    Jul 29, 2014 at 14:41

2 Answers 2

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"while" is used to contrast one situation or thing with another:

The sun is a star, while the moon is a satellite.

In this usage, it is synonymous with "whereas."

Otherwise, "while" used to show that one action is taking place at the same time as another:

My mother knitted while we played a game of Monopoly.

Finally, it can be used to mean "even though":

While I understand your problem, I cannot excuse you from class.

Since none of these meanings can be applied to your example, its use cannot be justified. Hence the sentence is correct without "while," and incorrect with it.

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  • This implies that the following would be grammatically correct? "The sun is a large object, WHILE only having a diameter of nearly a million miles" (there are stars which are much larger than the Sun)
    – vsz
    Jul 29, 2014 at 18:20
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    That doesn't really work because there's no direct contrast drawn, i.e. you would have to contrast the sun with another object: "While the sun is a large object, there are stars which are much larger." for example.
    – CocoPop
    Jul 29, 2014 at 18:35
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See this definition of while:

whereas (indicating a contrast)

In your incorrect example above, you are using while to introduce a contrast where there isn't one.

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