a man who was holding a basket
- Thread starter Roymalika
- Start date
It's a noun phrase.
Can you explain why it's not a clause? It has a subject and a verb, and that's the requirement for a phrase to be called a clause.
It contains a clause "who was holding a basket", but adding "a man" makes the whole string of words into a long phrase, i.e. any group of words that doesn't make a complete sentence.
We've been through all this already in your other thread about "the girl who had blue eyes". What makes you think this is any different?
I'm sorry, I was just confused about the structure. I've got it now.
I am wondering whether it'll still be a noun phrase if I remove "who was" from it?
I mean this: a man holding a basket
The original sentence becomes:
I saw a man holding a basket.
Yes, it will. This new noun phrase still contains a relative clause, but it's now a reduced relative clause "holding a basket". It's "reduced" because "who was" has been removed from it, but the meaning is unchanged.