Learn English – “have been long since forgotten” vs long forgotten usage

phrase-usage

The valuable stringed instruments in this display, all more than 300 years old, were carefully crafted by artisans famous in their day but long since forgotten.

Is ""have been long since forgotten" necessary in the sentence and correct?

Best Answer

An explicit copula (form of BE) is not necessary. The past participle forgotten here acts as an adjective, parallel with famous. Famous follows the noun it modifies because it is modified by a preposition phrase to its 'right', and forgotten comes after that because it is the second element in a conjoined modifier, famous ... but ... forgotten. If that PP in their day were replaced with once you could write

... by once famous but now long since forgotten artisans

which would make the adjectival character of forgotten more obvious. But you are not obliged to write it that way; you could also write

... by artisans once famous but now long since forgotten.

Related Topic