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Anonymous Posted 19 years ago
Grammar

The running boy is my son

Hello

I have troubles in how to use pre-noun present participles in English. How do you find a sentence like "The running boy is my son"? Can it mean "The boy, who is now running, is my son"?

Yosshy
  

Top answer

Anonymous Hello I have troubles in how to use pre-noun present participles in English. How do you find a sentence like "The running boy is my son"? Can it mean "The boy, who is now running, is my son"?

— Yoong Liat

  • Anonymous Hello I have troubles in how to use pre-noun present participles in English.
  • How do you find a sentence like "The running boy is my son"?
  • Can it mean "The boy, who is now running, is my son"?
  • Yosshy The running boy is my son.
  • (incorrect) The boy, who is now running, is my son is correct.
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5 Answers
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AnonymousHello

I have troubles in how to use pre-noun present participles in English. How do you find a sentence like "The running boy is my son"? Can it mean "The boy, who is now running, is my son"?

Yosshy

The running boy is my son. (incorrect)

The boy, who is now running, is my son is correct.
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Hi,

The running boy is my son. (incorrect) I agree that it doesn't sound good, but I wouldn't say it's incorrect.

How about The dying boy is my son?

Best wishes, Clive
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I may be wrong, but I think a person needs a fairly extensive vocabulary to come up with these kinds of examples. Often simple participles like running, swimming, cooking, dancing, and so on, are not often used before nouns, or if they are, it's not the easiest thing in the world to invent examples with them. You almost need to know some of the standard combinations that make use of presen
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Wow I can't see the rule behind it! Is it so even for native speakers? I take it from your answer, CalifJim.

Thanks for giving a lot of examles of when "pre-noun participle" is possible.

If you discover any grammatical rule governing this phenomenon, please let us know!
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AnonymousHello

I have troubles in how to use pre-noun present participles in English. How do you find a sentence like "The running boy is my son"? Can it mean "The boy, who is now running, is my son"?
More likely it would mean The boy who is now running is my son. If I see some boys at a distance and one of them is running, I might say: T
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