Tom,
I speak American English & I would use #1.
Simon,
You posted someone speaking American English would say this:
"Did you see Jim today?"
"Yeah, I saw him"
I would never say "Yeah, I saw him"
I would answer "Yes, I've seen him" or simply "Yes"
That's interesting but, Deborah, do you use typical American English? To me the past perfect is the correct grammatical structure to use and I'd have been somewhat supprised to have learnt that in American English it's the simple past tense that was used.
As for the difference between "a walker" and "a walking person" it runs along the lines of the simple present and the present continuous. A walker is anything that walks (or that thing for toddlers). I walk so I am a walker. A walking person is one who is walking now. I'm sitting so I'm not a walking person.
I think, though, that people would tend to say "a person walking" because the act of walking is expected to be only temporary. That is, we'd usually put the "-ing" word after the noun if it refers to something that the person or thing just happens to be doing now. We'd only put the "-ing" word before the noun if the action is permanent or at least quite extended or indefinite. For example "He's a funny-looking man." When you think of a man dying you think of a man who happens to be dying at the moment he may have cancer or he may have just been hung or shot. However, when you think of a dying man you think of a man suffering a drawn-out death rather than a sudden one. Would everyone agree with me on this one? I suppose there are a good number of exceptions to this rule but I think that generally that the difference.
I mixed up the numbers. I meant to say the Brits go for 1 (past perfect sentence) whilst Americans tend to choose 2. If you read the second message I posted, it's obvious that I mixed up the numbers.
To J, I'm not a linguist and not a historian either. I'm a theoretical physicist but my mother is a professor in linguistics. So under her influence, I might have some knowledge, (perhaps, not to the extent that you have), and comparative advantage in this subject. Perhaps, my knowledge of English is less than naught according to your claim but so is your social grace. What is your superior qualification then? Let us hear about your great educational background.
Deborah - out of curiosity, which part of the US do you come from?
Thank you very much for the thorough explanation, Jim!
It helped me a lot.
As for the general rule for the pre-modification(permanant) and post-modification(temporary) of the "ing" participles, I found these following statements in a grammar book(Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language):
"The possibility of modification by a present participle depends on the potentiality of the participle to indicate a permanant or characteristic feature..."
" ...'A wondering minstrel' is one habitually given to wandering, but if we saw a man wandering down the street, we could not say [3] but [4]:
*Who is the 'wandering' man? [3]
Who is the man 'wandering' down the street? [4]
Again, someone who told good stories could be 'a (very) entertaining person' but one would not say this of someone who happened at the moment of speaking to be entertaining his friends with a good story.
Note: The tendency towards permanence in the interpretation of premodifying participles is also seen in the nonprogressive interpretation of the participle in eg: a working man, ie 'one who does espetially manual work', or 'one who works, especially manually'."
I'm glad to know this fact.
But ,as you mentioned, there seems to be some exeptions for this rule. COLLINS COBUILD ENGLISH GRAMMAR says:
"The '-ing' form of most intransitive English verbs can be used attributively as adjectives to indicate what someone or something is doing
...a walking figure.
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities.
He es corted her areound the bowing and chanting multitude.
...two years of falling employment.
...a tremendous noise of crashing glass.
The use of the '-ing' form of verbs as adjectives is a productive feature of English."
I believe that it depend on the contexts. For example, in the following sentence, (I think)"a barking dog" is a dog that barks habitually, this does not mean "a dog that is barking NOW".
"A barking dog is a healthy dog."
while "a barking dog" in the following sentence means " a dog that is barking NOW"
"A barking dog seldom bites"
,which implies that "If you meet a dog and it is barking (at the time you see it), it is not likely that this dog will bite you."
Am I correct?
Incidentally, Could you please give me some example contexts including the following phrases?
"a walking figure ( or person, man, woman etc)"
"a working man"
"an entertaining person"
I'm a Japanese college student majoring in English. I'm corrently working on my assignment on "ing adjective". It would be greatful if you could help me analyse this issue.
I appreciate your help,
Dear Rupert
I apologise for my lack of social grace but your statment concerning the non-existence of the '-ing' suffix before the eighteenth century was almost unbelievable. Do you really believe (for a belief it really must be) that?
Actually the suffix existed in Old English and no doubt was present in Chaucer (Middle English), though I do not have his works to hand to prove my this. I do however have Shakespeare's 'Othello' (about 1602), a book in which you assert no '-ing' suffixes exist. Please look up:
'And throwing but shows of service on their Lords'
'In following him, I follow but myself.'
'But seeming so, for my peculiar end:'
'Is tupping your white ewe. Arise, arise,
Awake the snorting citizens with the bell,'
All of these are from Act 1 Scene 1. Perhaps you think that Shakespeare was innovating with word usage? Refer yourself to the contemporary King James Bible, Genesis Chapter 1 Verse 1: 'In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.'
Of course you could have meant that the innovative use of the '-ing' suffix in the eighteenth century was as a gerund. In which case, why did you mention it? Ryuta did not ask a question about gerunds.
I have almost no education whatsoever, nevermind anything in the field of Linguistics, all my knowledge comes from English being my first and only language. If your ridiculous theories on the English language come from the influence of your mother, then I wonder what worth her qualifications have?
Good point about gerunds though. When and why did that come about?
When did we first start putting the verb "to be" in front of present participles and why? My vaguest knowledge of Welsh tells me that a similar construction exists in Welsh, yet curiously not in any of our conventional linguistic cousins (French, German, Dutch, Danish, Latin etc.). Is this a Celtic connection or is it just coincidence?
Hello, J
I forgot to thank you for your answer to my question.
I thought you were Jim.
Sorry about it.
Dear J who has almost no formal education,
My mother's degrees (BA, MA, DPhil) are all from Sommerville College, Oxford University. She teaches in Princeton University, NJ, USA. So let's just say she has a stupid son.
Dr R
Don't worry about it Ryuta.
Simon
I don't really know when that construction came about, but I doubt it was a Celtic connection. Etymologists have found very few words in English that come from ancient interaction with Celtic peoples. So it is unlikely that verbal constructions would have been borrowed. I think it may just be a result of 'bare bones' English, where complex constructions have to come about to express the whole range of ideas, but from a few basic words. English has only three verb forms and yet manages seven(?) tenses, some which have three versions. Not bad.
Rupert
As you please Rupert, you are stupid.
Hello,
Could you please tell me which of the following sentences sound better to you?
"Yesterday I saw three women in the park. One was sitting on a bench and one standing nearby. I approached the STANDING WOMAN."
"Yesterday I saw three women in the park. One was sitting on a bench and one standing nearby. I approached the WOMAN STANDING."
I assume that the former would be better because you already know the woman is standing. You don't have to put focus on the "standing." The focus is on the woman. But, if you want to put focus on the "standing" as opposed to the "sitting", the latter would be better.
Am I right?
Well, I wouldn't use either.
The first would sound the best out of the two, however.
I would say "I approached the woman who was standing."
Thank you, Nob!
Please let me ask you one more question.
Suppose I took picures of birds that were flying. Can I say,
"I took pictures of flying birds." ?
Would it be better to say,
"I took pictures of birds that were flying."
or
"I took pictures of birds flying." ?
Many thanks!
Ryuta
Are you Japanese? Your name Ryuta is a Japanese name. If so, I have a question. The ing form in the Japanese language is translated as "~shiteiru tokoro", which sounds unnatural, doesn't it. Do you think this expression was introduced into the modern Japanese language during the Meiji period in order to translate the ing form in English?