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For instance:

 Hay un camión **que va** a la playa

In such sentences, can this always be replaced with:

 Hay un camión **ido** a la playa
nylypej
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2 Answers2

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The grammatical phenomenon known in English as relative clause reduction also exists in Spanish, with the present or past participle accompanying the noun only when the auxiliary verb omitted is SER or ESTAR.

In your original sentence:

  • Hay un camión que va a la playa.

the verb in the relative does not contain "ser" or "estar" and therefore cannot be reduced as proposed.

Instead, this sentence:

  • Hay un camión que está yendo a la playa. (There is a truck which is going to the beach.)

can be reduced to:

  • Hay un camión yendo a la playa. (There is a truck going to the beach.)

Note: The present participle can only be used with dynamic or action verbs, as is the case with "ir". Therefore, the sentence below in which the verb is stative is frowned upon according to strict grammar rules:

  • Hay un camión conteniendo mercadería valiosa. (There is a truck containing valuable goods.)

In correct Spanish, we need to say:

  • Hay un camión que contiene mercadería valiosa.

Now, for a past participle to be able to form a reduced relative clause, it needs to stem from a passive voice or from a predicate containing "estar" and an adjectival participle as complement:

The sentence:

  • Ese es el camión que fue secuestrado ayer. (That is the truck that was hijacked yesterday.) ("fue secuestrado" is passive)

can be reduced to:

  • Ese es el camión secuestrado ayer. (That is the truck hijacked yesterday.)

and the sentence:

  • Ese es el camión que está atascado en el médano. (That is the truck that is stuck in the dune.) ("está atascado" is a copula + adjectival participle structure)

can be reduced to:

  • Ese es el camión atascado en el médano. (That is the truck stuck in the dune.)
Gustavson
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  • No creo que el uso del gerundio suene bien en todo caso.………… jaja y justo cuando lo iba escribiendo editaste la respuesta para decirlo :-) Yo suelo evitar los gerundios en estas construcciones porque aunque no lo son siempre, me huelen a anglicismos (los veo demasiado en traducciones). – user0721090601 Nov 11 '18 at 18:53
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    @guifa Si el verbo es dinámico, la forma -ando/-endo es correcta y usada, por ejemplo: Vi un camión yendo (que estaba yendo) a la playa (oración ambigua, que también puede interpretarse como: Yendo a la playa, vi un camión). – Gustavson Nov 11 '18 at 18:59
  • Tienes toda la razón. No decía que era incorrecto, solo que muchas veces a mí me huele a anglicismo (más que nada en el caso de sobreuso). Junot Díaz por ejemplo se critica a sí mismo en sus obras tempranas por esta razón, por ejemplo, y reconoce que –en su caso por lo menos– viene de la influencia del inglés. – user0721090601 Nov 11 '18 at 19:05
  • then why is this correct too "se encuentra en la planta llamado NNN" ? – nylypej Nov 15 '18 at 15:34
  • @nylypej "la planta (femenino) llamado (masculino) NNN" no es gramatical. Deberìa ser "la planta llamada NNN" – Gustavson Nov 15 '18 at 15:57
  • @Gustavson that was a typo. My question is about a different thing – nylypej Nov 15 '18 at 19:07
  • @nylypej Once corrected, your example fits in perfectly with my explanation, with "llamada NNN" being a reduced form of the passive relative "que es llamada NNN". – Gustavson Nov 15 '18 at 23:02
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No, in fact you can't really ever do that.

In older Spanish it was very possible to do this if you used the active/present participle of the verb, yente (or with other verbs, -ante/-(i)ente):

(Medieval) Hay un camión yente a la playa.

However, these forms have for the most part lost their verbal uses and are now considered merely adjectives. As such, it's harder and often impossible to use them if the verb has any complements (such as is the case with your sentence, where a la playa is a locative adverbial complement, or complemento circunstancial de lugar in Spanish).

If you wish to replace que fue V.-ado/-ido, you can replace with the past participle. So for instance, given the sentence

Hay un camión que fue comprado por una persona.

I can replace the que fue comprado with simply comprado (matching for gender and number) to get:

Hay un camión comprado por una persona.

user0721090601
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  • how do I say then "there's a bus going to the beach"? "there's a man doing an exercise" ? – nylypej Nov 11 '18 at 18:12
  • Just say what you had: "que va a la playa" or "que hace un ejercicio" – user0721090601 Nov 11 '18 at 18:23
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    nylypej you should probably look to @Gustavson's answer. While it's not ALWAYS usable, you can often use the gerund to express what you want to and he describes some of the conditions. for it – user0721090601 Nov 11 '18 at 23:25