Use of participial adjective 'appearing'

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#9779 Fri, 03 Oct 03 05:02 AM

A student asked me this question:

You can say, "Computer-generated images appearing in films look quite real." From this construction, why can't you say, "Appearing computer-generated images in films look quite real"?

The reasoning which prompted this query is based on participial adjectives. For example, 'The baby crying on the playground is my sister' can be rendered 'The crying baby on the playground is my sister.'

I think that since 'appearing' is a copular or linking verb, it can only be used in a predicative (following) position , but not in an attributive (preceding) position. I base this reasoning simply on comparing copular verb usage to other verbs. Most verbs in their present participle form can be both attributive and predicative, but copular verbs in the same form seem to be only predicative. Also, it seems to be irrelevent if a verb is transitive or intransitive.

I have no idea whether this is correct or not. I wil not lose sleep over this, but any ideas on this are welcome.

Guest

Verbs, Constructions

wumanfu

#9789 Fri, 03 Oct 03 07:16 AM

Hi, you said, “I think that since 'appearing' is a copular or linking verb, it can only be used in a predicative (following) position , but not in an attributive (preceding) position.” Yes, I think so too. Otherwise the word ‘appearing’ might be forced to function like a type of Participial adjective, a word formed with the regular -ed or -ing ending, but lacking a corresponding verb. In stronger forms, an example of this class would become a Parasynthetic adjective; sometimes called a pseudo-participle. So maybe you’ve spotted a convention used when Participial adjectives are formed from copular verbs. Even as Participial adjectives , this class needs to function as a link.

wumanfu

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Verbs