Participle after object?

Question

Could anybody tell me whether the following sentences are correct or not?

"He just bought a car to show off" "He just bought a car showing off"

"I saw the man killed by the tiger" "I bought the car driven by highly precise mechanics"

I especially wonder whether you can just put a participle after an object (a car, the man, the car ^^) to form a relative clause. For instance: "I saw the man, who was killed by the tiger" or is it more like "I saw the man, while he was killed". The same goes for the car sentence.

Thank you!

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

AnonymousHe just bought a car to show off.

OK, but it's not certain whether he bought the car in order to show himself off, to make himself look important, or whether he bought the kind of car that he wanted to show off to others.

AnonymousHe just bought a car showing off.

No, this doesn't work. It's hard to tell what it means, but it certainly doesn't mean what the previous sentence means.

AnonymousI saw the man killed by the tiger.

This is ambiguous.
As a catenative construction with an intervening noun phrase, the tiger killed the man and you saw this event as it happened.
As a modifying participle clause, you saw the man who had already been killed by a tiger. That is, he was already dead when you saw him.

AnonymousI bought the car driven by highly precise mechanics.

This is a modifying participle clause. It modifies "car". It's a reduction of a relative clause, thus:

I bought the car which was driven by highly precise mechanics.

AnonymousI especially wonder whether you can just put a participle after an object ... to form a relative clause.

Yes. Your last sentence is a good example of that.

Anonymous"I saw the man, who was killed by the tiger" or is it more like "I saw the man, while he was killed"

As explained above, your example is ambiguous.

CJ

Anonymous · Answer

Thank you, CalifJim.
But how does it come, that one sentence is an example for a relative-clause structure (car driven by...) and the other (man killed by tiger) an abiguos one, even though both sentences are structered the same way: object + participle.

This fact also irritates me often when we have constructions like this:

"I stood on the boat pretending to work." I don't know why you don't put a comma between "boat" and "pretending". Without a comma the "boat would pretend" which is certainly not the case. When I compare this sentence to "I saw the tiger eating a deer" it really doesn't make any sense at all. The tiger is eating the deer, so there is a connection bewteen the participle and the object, but why not in the first example? These participles really confuse me.

CalifJim · Answer

Anonymoushow does it come, that one sentence is an example for a relative-clause structure (car driven by...) and the other (man killed by tiger) an abiguos one, even though both sentences are structered the same way: object + participle.

"see" is a catenative verb. "buy" is not a catenative verb, so the catenative interpretation of the sentence with "bought" is not available to us.

Anonymous"I stood on the boat pretending to work." I don't know why you don't put a comma between "boat" and "pretending". Without a comma the "boat would pretend" which is certainly not the case.

Commas are not needed when common sense tells us what the sentence means. More specifically for this sentence, boats can't pretend to work, so any kind of thinking that connects 'pretending to work' to 'boat' is faulty thinking. You can put a comma there if you want, but it's not needed.

AnonymousWhen I compare this sentence to "I saw the tiger eating a deer" it really doesn't make any sense at all.

It's likely that it doesn't make sense to you because you haven't studied and mastered catenative verbs yet. Constructions with catenative verbs may contain -ing words that are not the usual kinds of participle clause. You would do well to learn more about catenative verbs before attempting to sort out all the different kinds of participle clauses.

CJ

Anonymous · Answer

Thank you.
I just looked this topic up in the internet:
http://www.brighthubeducation.com/esl-lesson-plans/56360-catenative-verbs-linking-verbs-in-english/

There is nothing written about an object that goes between the catenative verb and the following verb, like
"saw the tiger eating". Why is this still a catenative verb and not a relative clause?

CalifJim · Answer

See

https://books.google.com/books?id=qlxDqB4ldx4C&pg=PA216&lpg=PA216&dq=Huddleston+English+grammar+catenative+%22intervening+NP%22&source=bl&ots=WQIGf0brw2&sig=f-uDSRJQos492EOqjVraUlEmVaI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjTs9b9habPAhXDoD4KHWPECtkQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=Huddleston%20English%20grammar%20catenative%20%22intervening%20NP%22&f=false

CJ

CalifJim · Answer

Anonymous"saw the tiger eating". Why is this still a catenative verb and not a relative clause?

It's not a relative clause because it doesn't mean "saw that tiger which was eating" as opposed to, for example, another tiger which was not eating. "eating" is not used to specify which tiger the speaker is talking about. "I saw the tiger eating" means the tiger was eating, and I know the tiger was eating because I saw that event.

The relative clause "which was eating" can't be reduced to "eating" in this case without interfering with the meaning.

CJ

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