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Jungdeok Choi
Use of 'Adjective' This is actually what I used to wonder, but it makes me confused again. [be responsible for] - Police caught the youths responsible for the vandalism. This is a sample sentence I have found in the dictionary. As soon as I noticed this sentence, I took time to think. Where has 'who was' gone? Isn't it supposed to be here? Is it possible not to use 'who is'? So I had searched for the word 'catch', but I could found the examples only with 'reduced adjective clause' such as: - The police caught him trying to steal the painting. - My teacher caught me cheating on a test. The point is, is it okay to make a sentence like this? - I saw a girl beautiful. - They solved a problem difficult. Do these make sense or Don't I know what the problem is?
5. Okt 2016 08:54
Answers · 5
I understand the logic behind your way of thinking about this. You are thinking that when you can omit ‘who were” from “Police caught the youths (who were) responsible for the vandalism.”, then it should also be possible to omit ‘who was’ from “I saw a girl who was beautiful.” and say “I saw a girl beautiful.” The answer is that you can’t do that - only “I saw a beautiful girl.” is correct (and the same is true of “They solved a difficult problem.”) I can’t give you a grammatical explanation for this, only tell you that you can’t do it. I will also point out that “responsible” belongs to “responsible for the vandalism”
5. Oktober 2016
Adjectives come before the noun. Your simple sentences are not correct, sorry. You might notice that the so-called adjectives that come after the noun are not single words but full phrases. It would be ridiculous to try putting the whole phrase in front of the noun. You are right in thinking that "who were" is missing from your first example. This is called a reduced relative clause. Your other two examples use participle clauses as object complements. Well, that's the technical reasoning if you wish to look the grammar up. Keep in mind that participles can be used as adjectives (and in other grammatical forms), and they are always formed from verbs.
5. Oktober 2016
Jungdeok Choi
Language Skills
English, Korean
Learning Language