Come

Question

HelloIs the verb "come"correctly used in the following sentence "B"?it is complicated to me. Could you clarify it to me?A. Jack's eyes opened wide and he said "John".B. That is right ,John, come to see his old friend.Kind regards,JA

GPY · Accepted Answer

Is sentence B spoken by John?

CalifJim · Answer

Joseph AThat is right, John, come to see his old friend.

The usual way we reduce a relative clause is to remove a wh word (which, who) and a form of be (typically is). [By the way, this is called Whiz Deletion by some.]

Thus, as a reduced (non-defining) relative clause it reads in unreduced form as

... John, who is come to see his old friend.

The use of be instead of have as an auxiliary to form a perfect tense is an extremely old feature of English. There are only a few verbs (usually verbs of motion) which are still seen in this construction, and even then very rarely.

We don't generally reduce relative clauses by removing [who/which] [has/have], so you will never see the following:

It's John, found the coat you lost. (who has found)
It's John, waited here for you for an hour. (who has waited)

But you may see that happen with verbs that still (rarely) take auxiliary be:

It's John, just risen from bed. (who is risen)
It's John, gone to great lengths to find you. (who is gone)

CJ

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