Learn English – Advanced rules for shortening relative clauses with a participle

participlesrelative-clausessyntactic-analysis

Once again, a problem encountered while marking German pupils' exams.
We teach them the following rules:

A present participle can be used to shorten an active relative clause:

  • The boy who was driving the car didn't stop = The boy driving the red car didn't stop

A past participle can be used to shorten a passive relative clause:

  • Strawberries which are grown in California are delicious = Strawberries grown in California are delicious.

While marking, I encountered several problems.
For example, why does this not work:

The girl who has black hair is in the corner
NOT
The girl having black hair is in the corner

or

That's the man who is happy to be here
NOT
That's the man being happy to be here

Does this all have to do with:

  1. the verbs have and be? (But "The girl, being happy, phoned her friend")
  2. the continuous and simple forms? (But "We help people who live in ghettos = we help people living in ghettos")
  3. the tenses?

Or what? I'm totally stumped by this problem and do not know how to explain the pupils' mistakes to them. The problem seems to occur mostly with the use of the present participle. Who can help with some explanations or even better, specific rules!

Best Answer

The problem with be is that the simple present and present progressive forms have different meanings: the simple present is an ordinary copula, but the present progressive means behave:

The man is funny.
The man is being funny.

The girl, being happy, phoned ... is different: here the clause is equivalent to because she was happy, not who was happy; it modifies the entire main clause, not the girl.

The problem with have is a little more complex. First, it's not strictly wrong, it's just stuffy:

Those having US passports should stand in Line A, all others in Line B.

Perhaps to avoid confusion between the many senses of have, we generally

  • restrict participial having in clauses of the sort you're working with to non-possessive/-attributive senses (for example causative The man having his hair cut and experiential people having a good time ); in possessive/attributive senses we use with instead (The girl with black hair, people with U.S. passports)
  • restrict participial having as an auxiliary in perfect constructions to temporal clauses (Having finished his dinner, he ...)
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