taking notes, grammar question

He is the student taking notes. This sentence carrys two actions: be and take notes.

I wonder if the meaning can be expressed in two sentences:

He is the person. (1)     He is taking notes.    (2)

The action of taking notes is in the present continuous tense. Can (2) be written as He was taking notes (at the lecture) (2), He took notes. (2) He has been taking notes (all through the lecture) (2), He had been taking notes (all through the lecture). (2)?

When (1) and (2) are written as one sentence, the participle (taking notes) can represent all the (2)s. If I am correct, how should (2) be interpreted?

She is the woman with the short black hair.

She is the woman. (1)  She has short black hair. (2)

Can the sentence be rewritten as She is the woman having short black hair? (3)

 If (3) is correct, can every prepositional phrase be replaced by a participle? It that is true, what is the difference between a prepositional phrase and a participle?

Thank you for your help.

Chariot wrote:

He is the student taking notes. This sentence carrys two actions: be and take notes. I wonder if the meaning can be expressed in two sentences: He is the person. (1)     He is taking notes.    (2) The action of taking notes is in the present continuous tense. Can (2) be written as He was taking notes (at the lecture) (2), He took notes. (2) He has been taking notes (all through the lecture) (2), He had been taking notes (all through the lecture). (2)? When (1) and (2) are written as one sentence, the participle (taking notes) can represent all the (2)s. If I am correct, how should (2) be interpreted? She is the woman with the short black hair. She is the woman. (1)  She has short black hair. (2) Can the sentence be rewritten as She is the woman having short black hair? (3)  If (3) is correct, can every prepositional phrase be replaced by a participle? It that is true, what is the difference between a prepositional phrase and a participle? Thank you for your help.

Hi,

Well, I hope I won’t end up with a foot in my mouth!

These sentences struck me as ….well off beat, if I may say so.

He is the student taking notes.  The core meaning to me is unclear.  [Taking] is a present participle but not quite correctly used in your context.  Perhaps, it can be rewritten as :

 A) The person taking note is a student. – present status              

 B) The person who was taking notes was a student. Past status.

When (1) and (2) are written as one sentence, the participle (taking notes) can represent all the (2)s. If I am correct, how should (2) be interpreted? 

The answer is Yes and No. it all depends on how the sentence is structure and what you try to get across.  If you are so stuck with # 1 which is [he is the student] and using the present participle, then basically your options are limited.  The “no” part is that, at least for now I can ‘t think of any example in which you can combine # I using present participle with all the # 2’s without using relative clause.

She is the woman with the short black hair. – [The] seems to be the improper article here. "A" is more suitable.  [She is a woman] sounds redundant. So your # 1 sentence is a weak base to build on. 

She is the woman. (1)  She has short black hair. (2)

Can the sentence be rewritten as She is the woman having short black hair? (3) I can’t pinpoint what it is….it just sounds awkward.  “Having” is used as a present participle.  By saying “she is having long back hair”, it’s implying that she didn’t have long back hair before. I think the logic here is interfering with what sounds correct grammatically.

 If (3) is correct, can every prepositional phrase be replaced by a participle? It that is true, what is the difference between a prepositional phrase and a participle?

If  I must give you an answer, I would say no. However, In some situation, it may be possible. Generally speaking, prep. phrase and present participle are not functionally, and perhaps grammatically correctly interchangeable.

1 - A woman with long legs does attract a lot of attention

2 - A woman having long legs does attract a lot of attention . In this case, 1 and 2  are interchangeable with the given context, Though it must noted that the core meaning is the same, there is an intangible difference in meaning.

Nona The Brit wrote:

Hard to explain but either would be ok. Yes, your new version is probably better. The first is more colloquial - it's more pointing out her hairstyle 'short black hair' as a cohesive whole in the way that we might say 'she is the woman with the red handbag'. Imagine looking at a magazine with hairstyle sample pictures. If there was a style with short black hair you'd say 'I like the short black hair' using 'short black hair' as a name for the hairstyle, rather than a description...sorry I can't explain it better.

Thank you all for your opinions. Having read your posts, can I say that

1. present participle used in the way as it is in "He is the student taking notes" exclusively refers to the action that is going on at the moment of speaking. If a sentence can be used to describe the action, it should be 'He is taking notes.' Past actions or future actions that modify "the student" should be written as relative clauses;

in "He is the student who is taking notes", is the relative clause "who is taking notes" redundant, since the present participle represent the action that is happening now?

2. by the same analogy, "She is the woman with black hair" and "She is the woman having black hair" are different in meaning. "Having black hair" is a temporary state;

3. on an occasion on which the woman is the only person who has black hair, "She is the woman with the black hair" is correct because "the black hair" is unique among the group of people. If "black hair" mentioned as a characteristic of the woman, not as something that distinguishes her from the other people, "She is the woman with black hair" is correct;

4. sometimes a participle, a relative clause or a preposition phrase can be used interchangeably to carry the same meaning?

Thank you for your attention.