Position teaching

Hello

We often come across a sentence as below.
      (EX) She found a position teaching English at a high school.

I understand the meaning of the sentence. But I'm wondering how to parse the sentence. From the meaning, "teaching English" should be a phrase to backwardly modify "a position". But is it grammatical to put a gerundive modifier directly to a noun to be modified?

paco

Clive wrote:

I'm not good at naming things, but is it not  a participle functioning more as an adjective than as a gerund?

Clive,

Thank you for the quick reply. I thought that possibility. But can "a position" teach English?

paco

Hello RVW

Thank you for the answer. Your thought sounds someway more reasonable. But still I cannot feel confident. If "teaching English" is appositive to "a position", I think, "She found teaching English at a high school" should be idiomatic, but it is not the case. Furthermore, we cannot use along with "a position" any noun phrase other than --ing. For example, "She found a position instruction of English at a high school" sounds weird. So…

paco

is it grammatical to put a gerundive modifier directly to a noun to be modified?

I would say yes.  You could probably find more examples of the same structure.  You may debate whether the following sentence follows the structure you have in mind (maybe it's not "gerundive" enough), but I think it is generally within the sphere of the sorts of things you are asking about.

The book contained only two paragraphs explaining the cause of the Civil War.

CJ

Hello CJ

Thank you for the suggestion. I can rather easily explain the grammar of your sentence with a rule of WHIZ deletion (clause contraction): "The book contained only two paragraphs (which were) explaining the cause of the Civil War". But in the case of my sentence, we need a "queer WHIZ deletion" to explain its grammaticality. "She found a position (which involved) teaching English at a high school". So I have a feeling this sort of phrase, "a position/a job/work --ing",  might be one of ungrammatical idiomatic constructs created by current English speakers.

paco