Hi
ccheryn,
You are more than welcome. Nice conclusion. However, your second doubt needs to be sorted out separately.
ccheryn wrote:
( my second doubt) My question here is can above be parallel .
Reducing tax revenues is also ( adjective + noun) and
decreasing unemployment also ( adjective + noun)
all are similar to defaulting loans ( adjective + noun)
high debt ( adjective + noun)
As if I say signs will "have"
reducing tax revenues
decreasing unemployment
defaulting loans
high debt
Your question: Why
reducing tax revenues is not parallel to
defaulting loans, if both are
adjective (participle) + noun? (
highlighted part above)
Short answer: reducing tax revenues is NOT
adjective (participle) + noun, but rather is
noun (gerund) + noun. In other words,
reducing can’t be present participle and function as an adjective here because
reduce is a
transitive verb. It means that revenues can’t reduce themselves, but we need someone or something to reduce them. For example, you can’t say “the revenues reduced by 10%”, but instead you should say “low demand reduced the revenues by 10%” or “the revenues were reduced by 10% (by low demand)”. As you see, a transitive verb
reduce always needs a doer such as
low demand. Thus
reducing revenue is not the same thing as
falling revenue, because revenue can fall itself, but revenue can’t reduce itself. The difference between
fall and
reduce is similar to the difference between
rise and
raise, or
lie and
lay. Correspondingly,
reducing + noun can only be a gerund (noun) as in the following sentence:
Reducing employees’ salary was a wrong decision. However, notice that
reduce already has a noun form
reduction, so we don’t need to create another noun
reducing, as I wrote in my previous post. Conclusion,
reducing tax revenues is not
adjective + noun, and thus doesn’t mean
declining tax revenues or
falling tax revenues or
decreasing tax revenues. If this short answer falls short of satisfying you, please, take a look at the longer one below.
Long answer: First, we should brush up on two things:
1. reduce vs. fall (transitive vs. intransitive)
2. Active present participle vs. Passive present participle
1. Are the below sentences correct?
a. The revenue is rising all the time.
b. The revenue is raising all the time.
c. The revenue is falling all the time.
d. The revenue is reducing all the time.
Only a and c are correct here. The difference between
rise and
raise is similar to the difference between
fall and
reduce.
Rise is more like
fall (intransitive) while
raise is more like
reduce (transitive). Consider the following correct examples:
B rises A raises BB fallsA reduces B a. When we say
B rises, we mean that B can rise itself. For example, “the sun rises” means that the sun rises itself and nobody raises the sun. In other words, the sun itself is the
doer of the action
rise. What does rise? The sun rises. Similarly, “the revenue rises” means that the revenue is the
doer of the action
rise. That makes sense.
b. When we say
A raises B, we mean that B can’t raise itself, and we need A to raise B. For example, “Ann raised the chair” means that chair can’t rise itself, so we need Ann to raise the chair. In other words, not B, but A is the
doer of the action
raise. Who raises B? A raises B. That makes sense.
To help you compare the meanings, here are some examples with raise and rise in the same sentence:
- We
raise the flag when the sun
rises, and we lower it when the sun goes down.
- Whenever our commanding officer comes in, we
rise from our chairs and
raise our hands in salute.
- The helicopter
rose into the air,
raising the survivors out of the water.
c. B falls is similar to
B rises in that - in both cases B is the
doer. For example, “demand for new cars usually falls in winter” means that demand falls itself. That makes sense.
d. A reduces B is similar to
A raises B in that - in both cases A is the
doer, NOT B. For example, “Ann reduced her speed to 30 mph” means that speed didn’t fall itself, but Ann reduced the speed. Who reduced? Ann reduced. Therefore, in Standard English, we can’t say B reduces because B can’t reduce itself. We must say A reduces B. That makes sense.
Small conclusion: reduce is a transitive verb and needs a doer. We can say “the population has decreased (fell, declined, diminished)”, but we can’t say “the population has reduced”. We either say “unknown viral disease has reduced the population” or “the population has been reduced”.
2. Are the below sentences correct?
a. The discussing question is irrelevant.
b. The question being discussed is irrelevant.
c. The man discussing his financial problems with me was our bank’s old client.
d. The man being discussed is our bank’s old client.
All are correct except for a. When we say “singing girl was very beautiful”, we mean that the girl herself was singing. For the same reason, a
illogically means that the question itself was discussing something. However, that’s nonsense because the question itself hasn’t got the ability to discuss something, but rather it can be discussed. b rectifies a’s mistake by changing active to passive present participle “the question being discussed…”.
Being discussed means that the question was discussed by someone.
Similarly,
a reducing prices company or
a company reducing prices means that a company itself was reducing prices for something. Since reducing is in active form here, it means that a company is a doer of the action reduce. That makes sense.
However,
reducing prices is not the same thing as
falling prices or
dropping prices or
decreasing prices.
Falling,
dropping, and
decreasing can be adjective (participle) because prices can fall, drop, or decease themselves (these verbs can be intrensitive). But,
reducing CAN’T be an adjective (participle) because prices can’t reduce themselves (
reduce can't be intrensitive in Standard English, thus that makes no sense). Take it simple, a company can reduce prices, but prices can’t reduce themselves, that’s it.
As in b, we can rectify this mistake by adding
passive present participle, for example:
- prices
being reduced by a company
-
being reduced prices
- maintenance costs
being reduced by innovation
-
being reduced maintenance costs
- tax revenues
being reduced by recession
-
being reduced tax revenues (not
reducing tax revenues)
Final conclusion: reducing tax revenues can’t be
adjective (participle) + noun, but is
noun (gerund) + noun because revenues can’t reduce themselves. Revenues can be reduced by something else such as recession, so we can create a participle (adjective) by adding passive, for example:
tax revenues being reduced by recession or
being reduced tax revenues (by recession). Now, as you said in above highlighted part, we have
adjective + noun = being reduced tax revenues.
In case you want to check your understanding of the whole post, you can take a look at the following tests:
1.
https://www.test-english.com/grammar-po ... e-clauses/2.
https://www.test-english.com/grammar-po ... djectives/ 
close
16 Jul 2019, 13:22
