Participle constructions with adjectives

Question

In participle constructions, the relative pronoun and the auxiliary can sometimes be omitted, often also before adjectives. However, I have just come across two sentences where it makes perfect sense to leave it out in the first, but impossible in the second. Is there a grammatical explanation for that?
1. He's the man (who is) responsible for all the paperwork.
2. She's the woman who is angry at me.
Thanks.

Avangi · Accepted Answer

From the point of view of grammar, it seems to me that you can also omit the "who is" in the second example.

The essential difference I see is that logically there's always a responsible person, but there may not always be an angry person.
In the second example, you're making a judgement which may or may not be true.
In the first example, you're stating a fact.

It's definitely a gray area!

Anonymous · Answer

Thank you for your answer. I guess you could leave it out in the second example, too. But what about the sentence: That's the woman who is mad/tired/lonely etc. Here you couldn't omit the 'who is'. I wonder if there are adjectives that can follow an omitted relative pronoun+auxiliary and others that cannot... Thank you in advance for your help.

Avangi · Answer

I'm drawing a blank. Let me think about it.

Participles and participial phrases work well with an omitted "who/which is/are," and these often function as adjectives.

The man snoring is keeping me awake.
That car speeding down the road is likely to crash.
That's the woman causing all the trouble.
That's the bearing squeaking.

- A.

CalifJim · Answer

AnonymousIn participle constructions, the relative pronoun and the auxiliary can sometimes be omitted, often also before adjectives.
1. He's the man (who is) responsible for all the paperwork.
2. She's the woman who is angry at me.

Why are you asking about participle constructions when neither of your examples contain participles?

I think you meant "relative clauses".

As for your question, it's true that sometimes deleting 'who is' and similar constructions sounds fine, sometimes it doesn't. I don't recall that there is any rule about it except that if you are left with a bare adjective after the noun, you almost always have to move it so it's in front of the noun.

There's a woman who is angry, but not There's a woman angry. It has to be changed to There's an angry woman.

With dependents on the adjective, the same may not necessarily be true.

There's a woman who is angry at the whole world, or There's a woman angry at the whole world. (Never, of course, There's an angry at the whole world woman.)

To judge only by your examples, definiteness (of one variety or another) may be the reason that dropping who is sounds better in the first case than in the second. I can't specify exactly what my intuition tells me here, but "responsible for all the paperwork" sounds more definite than "angry at me", as if asking someone "Who is responsible for all the paperwork?" will get a more definite answer than asking them "Who is angry at me?" I'm out on a limb here, and you'll get various opinions on this.

CJ

Participle constructions with adjectives

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