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This is a follow-up to this earlier question. I want to say that I met a person and they were drunk at the time. Which should I use:

  1. I saw intoxicated John.

  2. I saw the intoxicated John.

  3. I saw John intoxicated.

I know I could say I saw John, who was intoxicated, but I want to say it with one clause. How does it work for present participles?

  1. I found sleeping John.

  2. I found the sleeping John.

  3. I found John sleeping.

Any rule of thumb for that?

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jules
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    Participial adjectives are “always” premodifiers to the noun phrase, whereas participial phrases are always postmodifiers to the noun phrase. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the past passive participle or the present active participle: the same rule applies. As for using definite articles in front of people’s names, that’s something else altogether. – tchrist Jul 08 '14 at 22:23
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    @tchrist Don't you think it is off-topic and fits better at ELL? Or have the standards of on/off topic been changed ? – Centaurus Jul 08 '14 at 22:26
  • You seem to be asking about which structures are grammatical. This is only part of the problem/opportunity, though. Only (3) 'I saw John intoxicated' of your first set of examples would normally be considered acceptable, but it carries a different emphasis from the equally acceptable 'I saw John, who was intoxicated'. – Edwin Ashworth Jul 08 '14 at 22:34
  • It's certainly not off topic here. It's a complex question, and there's a rule. Which nobody has mentioned yet here. – John Lawler Jul 09 '14 at 00:42
  • @EdwinAshworth What's the different emphasis? – jules Jul 09 '14 at 05:37
  • @JohnLawler What's the rule, then? – jules Jul 09 '14 at 05:38
  • @tchrist Am I to infer 1 and 3 are correct then? – jules Jul 09 '14 at 05:49
  • To me, #3 infers a different meaning, of "I saw John become intoxicated", unlike the first two. But really none of them sound like good usage. – Miral Jul 09 '14 at 07:23
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    'I saw John, who was intoxicated' would be used to string together two loosely connected statements in an unmarked way. 'I saw John. He was intoxicated' is almost identical in emphasis (or lack of it), though stressing 'was' say in either version introduces emphasis (to correct someone who thinks John never gets drunk, for instance). 'I saw John intoxicated' already contains the connotation of censure. It is connecting the two elements (seeing John and him being drunk) into a fused single statement. – Edwin Ashworth Jul 09 '14 at 08:03
  • @EdwinAshworth: Thanks. A follow-up, then. If we changed "John" to "a man", the more natural order would be: "I saw an intoxicated man" and "I found a sleeping man", than "I saw a man intoxicated" and "I found a man sleeping"?. Or, in this case, both are OK. – jules Jul 09 '14 at 08:48
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    I'll just address the latter two possibilities. 'I found a man sleeping (...)' is more natural in most circumstances, and emphasises your finding and the fact that he was sleeping, equally; 'I found a sleeping man' draws more attention to the man's state than your finding. – Edwin Ashworth Jul 09 '14 at 09:00

1 Answers1

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I saw John intoxicated [/drunk as a lord] [/happy once].

and

I found John sleeping [like a log].

are 'object-orientated depictive constructions' ( Asada ). As these necessarily involve complex predicates, the adjectives (participial or otherwise) must follow the noun they modify (here, the object).

Attributive adjectives can of course be used, but don't often sit well with proper nouns (or pronouns):

*/?I found tipsy John.

*I found tipsy him.

I found a / the tipsy man.

Where both constructions are available, there can be a difference in meaning:

We found the dead horse. [that the kids had told us about]

We found the horse dead. [its owner should have phoned us (Supervets) sooner]

(obvious whiz- or to be-deletion in the second case; perhaps inferrable in the first: see J Lawler ; end of post )

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Edwin Ashworth
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  • Thus, the rule of thumb here would be: participles should follow nouns/pronouns/names; adjectives should precede them, and - when in doubt - break the sentence into 2 clauses. Right? – jules Jul 09 '14 at 10:58
  • I'd call all the above adjectives rather than true participles. "object-orientated depictive constructions' ... necessarily involve complex predicates, {so} the adjectives (participial or otherwise) must follow the noun they modify. One needs to check on the type of construction. 'We found the horse dead': object-orientated depictive construction (S-V-O-Adj). 'We found the dead horse': S-V-O. – Edwin Ashworth Jul 09 '14 at 11:06
  • I guess in the 2nd horse example the meaning of "find" is "to learn about" not "to come across", so maybe the example is not that relevant in this case? – jules Jul 09 '14 at 11:17
  • No; 'found the horse dead' is analogous to 'found John sleeping'. Both came across and discovered the state of. 'We found John dishonest' is a different sense. – Edwin Ashworth Jul 09 '14 at 21:15