Helped

Question

Hi,"The fear is that the "labour hoarding" that occurred during the recession, where employers retained skilled workers for fear of losing them forever, and pay restraint helped to protect jobs, may now be coming to an end as employers conclude that the upturn won't come soon enough for them to justify keeping their staff on any longer." [From The Independent.]Is the word "helped", used in the cited sentence, a past participle doing the job of an adjectival postmodifier of the noun phrase "pay restraint"?Thank you.

Mister Micawber · Accepted Answer

No, 'helped' is a verb in the simple past tense in the subordinate clause modifying 'labour hoarding':

..."labour hoarding", where employers retained skilled workers and pay restraint helped to protect jobs...

Anonymous · Answer

Thank you, MM, for your reply. I'm still not conviced. In the complement "... that the "labour hoarding" that occurred during the recession, where employers retained skilled workers for fear of losing them forever, and pay restraint helped to protect jobs, may now be coming to an end as employers conclude that the upturn won't come soon enough for them to justify keeping their staff on any longer." the subjects are the "labour hoarding" and "pay restraint" and the verb is "may now be coming". So, if helped were to be a simple past verb then there should have been a relative pronoun which/that put between the pay restraint and helped . Am I right?

Mister Micawber · Answer

No, it is not necessary to add the 2nd relative pronoun.

Helped

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