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Paco2004 Posted 20 years ago
Grammar

position teaching

0Hello 02br
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00We often come across a sentence as below.02br
00 (EX) 01i00She found a position teaching English at a high school.02br
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00I understand the meaning of the sentence. But I'm wondering how to parse the sentence. From the meaning, "teaching English" should be a phrase to backwardly modify "a position". But is it grammatical to put a gerundive modifier directly to a noun to be modified? 02br
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00paco0-
  

Top answer

02br 02br 00Clive0-

— Clive

  • 02br 02br 00Clive0-
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21 Answers
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0Hi Paco,02br
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00I'm not good at naming things, but is it not a participle functioning more as an adjective than as a gerund?02br
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00Clive0-
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0 01blockquote
01cite10Clive12cite10I'm not good at naming things, but is it not a participle functioning more as an adjective than as a gerund?12blockquote
10Clive,02br
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00Thank you for the quick reply. I thought that possibility. But can "a position" teach English?02br
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00paco 0-
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0 I think the phrase 01i01font00teaching English at a high school02font00 02i00is in apposition to 01i01font00position02font00. 02i00The sentence could have been written:01i02br
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02i01blockquote
01blockquote
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0 Hello RVW02br
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00Thank you for the answer. Your thought sounds someway more reasonable. But still I cannot feel confident. If "teaching English" is appositive to "a position", I think, "She found teaching English at a high school" should be idiomatic, but it is not the case. Furthermore, we cannot use along with "a position" any noun phrase other than --ing. For example
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0 paco2004,02br
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00I had doubts when I posted. There seems to be something more to this. I will think about it some more.02br
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00rvw0-
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0 01blockquote
00is it grammatical to put a gerundive modifier directly to a noun to be modified?12blockquote
10 I would say yes. You could probably find more examples of the same structure. You may debate whether the following sentence follows the structure you have in mind (maybe it's not "gerundive" enough), but I think it is generally within the s
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0Hi guys,02br
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01font00But can "a position" teach English?00 Well, I have 01i00a teaching position02i00. It's pretty adjectival there. Is 01i00a position teaching English02i00 really a completely different case? 02font02br
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01font00Best
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0 Hello CJ02br
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00Thank you for the suggestion. I can rather easily explain the grammar of your sentence with a rule of WHIZ deletion (clause contraction): "The book contained only two paragraphs (which were) explaining the cause of the Civil War". But in the case of my sentence, we need a "queer WHIZ deletion" to explain its grammaticality. "She found a position (which i
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0 Clive02br
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00You might say "a teaching position", but would you say "a working-with-foster-children-and-children's-issues position"?. 02br
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00paco0-
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0Hi Paco,02br
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00Yes, I might say that, if I wanted to speak in a deliberately odd and 'whimsical' way. Which, sometimes, we do in every-day conversation. People would understand me very easily.02br
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00If I were speaking more carefully, of course I wouldn't. But, the only problem is the length of the phrase. Grammatically, it seems adjectival to me
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