American English is a fascinating language. Though often convenient and flexible, it can also be disconcerting when it becomes a second language, which happened to me many years ago. Moreover, English grammatical rules may present challenges to even native speakers leaving more than one puzzled trying to understand the logic behind the linguistic structure of both oral and written communication. Below, you will find some specific concepts that belong to the online Intermediate Grammar Project curriculum of the University of California at Irvine in partnership with Coursera whose notions I still find troublesome to completely grasp or memorize.
I selected 15 rules from the pool of three grammar courses I took at the UCI Division of Continuing Education to which I added my explanations and multimedia support references for further clarification. I truly hope that you find the following content easy to understand and much easier to remember so that you can apply it successfully in your daily life.
“15 English Grammar Rules That Can Be Challenging for English as a Second Language Speakers”
1. Verb complementation with either the gerund/present participle or the to-infinitive verb
A gerund is a nonfinite verb that ends in -ing (e.g. ‘loving’) as opposed to an infinitive verb, which is also a nonfinite verb but that starts with the preposition ‘to’ (e.g. ‘to love’). Some verbs — usually ‘mental’ verbs — take only the gerund as verb complement after the main verb like the verb ‘like’ in ‘I like going to the park’, and others — usually ‘action’ verbs — take only the infinitive after the main verb like in ‘Carol offered to cook tonight’.
Few verbs can take both the gerund and the infinitive alike without changing the meaning as in ‘Mary will begin teaching at 8 am’ or ‘Mary will begin to teach at 8 am’. Generally, using both verb complements does not change the meaning of the sentence but depending on the verb using the gerund or the infinitive will change the meaning like with the verbs “[…] forget, regret and remember”. [When these] are followed by a gerund, the gerund refers to an action that happened earlier than the main verb […]. The gerund could be replaced by the present perfect participle in these sentences to make the sequence of events more explicit. Forget is frequently used with never in the simple future form (EF English First)”.
- “I will never forget meeting my boss for the first time”.
- “I remember locking the door. = I remember having locked the door.”
- “He regretted speaking so rudely. = He regretted having spoken so rudely.”
- “I don’t remember losing my glasses. = I don’t remember having lost my glasses”.
“When [an] infinitive follows these verbs, the infinitive refers to an action happening at the same time of the main verb, or later”.
“Examples”
- “This morning I remembered to lock the door. (= the remembering came first, then the locking.)”
- “Do not forget to buy some eggs. (= the not forgetting comes first, then the buying eggs.)”
- “I forgot to bring my books to school. (= first I forgot, then I didn’t bring my books.)”
- “We regret to announce the late arrival of the 12.45 from Paddington. (= our regrets come before the announcement”
Aside from this special use of verb complementation that affects verb sequencing, not following the regular pattern of verb complementation of gerunds or infinitives results in ungrammaticality.
2. Politeness: Making a request and asking for permission with modal verbs
The difference between requesting something from someone and someone asking somebody else for permission is using the second person pronoun (you, singular, and plural) for making a request and the first person pronoun for asking for permission (I, singular, and plural).
The verbs used for both types of questions are the modal verbs. Modal verbs have two simultaneous functions: they are auxiliary verbs of the main verb to form a verbal phrase, and they convey the “mode” in which a question — an affirmative or a negative statement — is uttered or written. The modal verbs for both making a request and asking for permission are the formal expressions ‘Would you let me open the door…?’ (asking for permission), ‘Would you mind if I open the door?’ (asking for permission), ‘Will you tell me if the door is open?’, (making a request) ‘Would you open the door for me? (making a request) and the less polite expressions ‘Could I open the door?, or (less polite than ‘could’) Can I open the door?’ (asking for permission), and ‘Can you tell me when you will pay me back?’ (making a request). The answer to ‘Would you mind if I open the door?’ can be: ‘No, I do not mind’ (meaning, ‘go ahead and open the door’), or ‘Yes, I do mind’ (meaning, ‘I mind if you open the door’ = ‘I do not want you to open the door’).
3. The different meanings of the present perfect verb tense with the prepositions “for” and “since” and without either one
When the present perfect is used without prepositions such as ‘since’ and ‘for’, it means that the action started in the past and finished in the past without a specified time in which the action occurred like in ‘I have/she has/he has/we have/they have taught in high school’. This unspecified action can also refer to both repeated events and life experiences. When the present perfect is used with the preposition ‘for’, it refers to the duration of the action like in ‘She has worked in Texas for 10 years’. When the present perfect is used with the preposition ‘since’, it refers to a specific point in the past like in ‘I have traveled since 2000’, ‘Mary has not visited since May’, and ‘The baby has slept since 9 pm.
4. Differences between the present perfect verb tense and the present perfect progressive/continuous tense
The difference between these two perfect tenses are the following: 1) The present perfect emphasizes the result of an action or its completion, whereas the present perfect progressive (or continuous) emphasizes the development of action, 2) The present perfect is used with stative verbs like ‘be’ (I have been at home lately), while the present perfect progressive is concerned with the period of an action, 3) The present perfect uses adverbs of time such as ‘ever’ or ‘never’, and the present perfect progressive uses prepositions ‘since’ and ‘for’ to refer to the duration of action, 4) The present perfect focuses on the frequency of action (‘how often have you traveled?’) when the present perfect progressive focuses on the duration of action be this finished or unfinished (‘how long have you been waiting for the bus?’ ,— meaning ‘You have been waiting and are still waiting’) — and also focuses on seeing the results of the action even after the action finished. E.g. — ‘Your face is very red and sweaty, have you been exercising?’ — ‘Yes, I have been walking under the sun for the last two hours’.
5. Stative verbs (non-action verbs) used as action verbs
Stative verbs can be used also as action verbs depending on the context in which they are used. If one wants to express or describe an ‘action’, ‘think’, for example, which is a stative verb, functions as an action verb like in ‘The teachers are thinking about giving a test’, or ‘Mary is not thinking about her trip’ as opposed to the predominant stative use of ‘think’ in ‘Mary thinks the game is entertaining’; here ‘think’ means ‘believe’, another stative verb. Another example of a stative verb that can function as an action verb is ‘be’ like in ‘Caro is usually nice, but today she is being obnoxious’. Here, the verb ‘be’ is expressing an action that is not a habit or a present circumstance like in ‘Caro is the oldest of three siblings’ (meaning ‘Caro was, is, and will be the oldest of three siblings’). The verb ‘have’ is also a stative verb that can be used as an action verb like in ‘Caro is having an awful time at the party’ as opposed to its stative use like in ‘Caro has no details on the trip’ (a present, current circumstance).
The rule to use a stative verb as an action verb is as follows: When we talk of right now and describe a situation or a scene, i.e., actions, we can use stative verbs that refer to the senses like ‘taste’, ‘smell’, look at’, and ‘see’ as action verbs. For example: ‘People are tasting their food to make sure is not cold’ (‘taste’ used as an action verb) — If the food tastes bad, people won’t come back (‘taste’ used as a stative verb), ‘A man is smelling his food before he eats it’ (‘smell’ used an action verb) — ‘It smells wonderfully at the restaurant’ (‘smell’ used as a stative verb), ‘Sylvia and George may break up, but at this moment they are seeing each other quite often’ (‘see used as an action verb) — Have you seen the woman in the car’ (‘see’ used as a stative verb), ‘A woman is looking at the menu’ (‘look at’ used as an action verb) — ‘These people look happy and relaxed’ (‘look’ used as a stative verb).
Both uses in the examples, action and stative, are about a situation that is happening right now; the only difference is that the active use of the stative verbs refers to the NARRATIVE or dynamics of a specific moment instead of referring to the DESCRIPTION or exposition of a specific moment.
6. Phrasal verbs: Morphology and Meaning
Phrasal verbs are word bundles composed of 1) verb + 2) adverb and/or preposition + 3) object. They can be transitive (they accept an object or noun) or intransitive (they do not accept an object or noun). Examples of transitive phrasal verbs are ‘I am better off without my boyfriend’ (in a better position or situation), and ‘Turn the lights off, please’ (stop the lights from functioning). Examples of intransitive phrasal verbs are ‘Let us get in the office’ (enter), ‘I grew up in Europe (to be raised), ‘His car broke down’ (got damaged), ‘The politician backed down in front of the press’ (retreat or leave an argument). Both types of phrasal verbs are idiomatic, which means there is no way to predict the meaning of the phrase by adding the meaning of its words, so there is no set of rules to distinguish between the meaning of one phrasal verb or the other, so, when in doubt, one must check the dictionary, memorize the combinations of words of each phrasal verb and their particular meaning and resort to the context or situation of the sentence to make sense out of it.
Some phrasal verbs are made out of two words, some of which can be separated from the object/noun (transitive separable phrasal verbs) as opposed to those that cannot be separated from the object/noun (either transitive inseparable phrasal verbs or intransitive inseparable phrasal verbs). Examples of both types are ‘turn (the lights) on’ or ‘turn on (the lights) (verb + object/noun + preposition) or (verb + preposition + object/noun) = stop the lights from functioning (transitive separable phrasal verb); ‘fill (the application) out’ or ‘fill out the application’, (verb + object/noun + adverb) or (verb + adverb + object/noun) = ‘complete a form’ (transitive separable phrasal verb); ‘talk (Mary) into going to the party’ (verb + preposition + object/noun) = ‘persuade someone to do something’ (transitive inseparable phrasal verb as one cannot say ‘talk into Mary going to the party’)’; ‘get by’ (verb + preposition) = ‘survive’ (intransitive inseparable phrasal verb), ‘make up a lie’ or ‘make (a lie) up’ (verb + adverb + object/noun) or (verb + object + adverb) = create something not real or untrue’ (transitive separable phrasal verb).
Some other phrasal verbs are formed by three words which cannot be separated (transitive inseparable phrasal verbs) from the object/noun, which must go at the end of the phrasal verb like in ‘cut down on sugar’ (verb + adverb + preposition + object/noun) = reduce; ‘put up with my husband’ (adverb + preposition + object/noun) = tolerate; ‘look forward to seeing you’ (verb + adverb + preposition + object/noun (here the gerund ‘seeing’ is functioning as a noun) = anticipate, expect; ‘come up with an idea’ (verb + adverb + preposition + object/noun); ‘make up with my sister’ (verb + adverb + preposition + object/noun) = make amendments, reconcile, ‘break away from’ (verb + adverb + preposition + object/noun) = ‘release, liberate’; ‘keep away from trouble’ (verb + adverb + preposition + object/noun) = ‘stay away or keep a distance’; ‘keep up with my homework’ (verb + adverb + preposition + object/noun) = ‘follow or monitor an event of situation closely’; ‘back down from my position’ (verb + adverb + preposition + object/noun) = ‘retreat from an argument’, ‘carry on with the task’ (verb + preposition + preposition + object/noun) = ‘continue as usual or misbehave’.
7. Phrasal verbs: Same morphology but different meaning
Phrasal verbs are bundles of verb + adverb or preposition + object, among other patterns of word order, which are idiomatic, that is, that the sum of these words does not equate to a logically derived meaning.
Although there are 2 types of phrasal verbs ‘transitive’ (the ones that accept an object) and ‘intransitive’ (the ones that do not accept an object), there is a third category of phrasal verbs that have the same morphology (they are written the same way) but have different meanings. E.g. ‘Look up’ as a transitive phrasal verb means ‘to look at a word on the Internet or dictionary’ (‘I am looking up this word that I do not understand’), whereas ‘look up’ as an intransitive phrasal verb means ‘to get better’. Another example is ‘take out’ whose one its meaning is to borrow a book from the library (‘I need to take out the English book to study’); to get out something that is inside of another object (‘Take the wallet out of your purse, please’); to go on a date with someone (‘Peter is taking Mary out for dinner); to order food and take it home (‘I am having a take-out tonight because I do not want to cook’), and to take an object or kicking a person from a closed place like a house (‘Take the trash out, please’, or ‘Take them out right now!’), ‘If you bother me, I am taking you out, man! (to destroy or kill).
8. Correct collocation of prepositions according to different instances of “time” reference
The acronym ATONIN as explained by the University of California at Irvine grammar course helps us to remember what prepositions we should use with different instances of time references. At the top, we have the smallest units of time followed by the larger units of time to finalize with the largest units of time. From the top of the pyramid, we find AT for midday and night and the exact time of the day as in ‘at noon’, ‘at midnight’, ‘at 5:10 pm’; the next category down is ON for days, celebrations, holidays, and dates as in ‘on Monday’, ‘on his anniversary/birthday’, ‘on Christmas/Thanksgiving’, on January 7th, 2022’; lastly is the largest units of time with IN (weeks, months, years, and decades) such as ‘in two weeks’, ‘in May/April’, ‘in 2022, or ‘in the 1990s’.
9. Correct collocation of prepositions according to transportation nouns
When it comes to means of transportation, we should use certain prepositions according to 2 classifications: 1) closed space capacity and 2) open space capacity. If the vehicle has a closed space capacity, we use the preposition ‘in’ like ‘in a/the car’, ‘in a/the rocket’, ‘in a/the plane’ (small), ‘in a/the taxi’, ‘in a/the boat’ (small). If the vehicle has an open space capacity, we use the preposition ‘on’ like ‘on a/the plane’ (large), ‘on (a/the) bike’, ‘on (a/the) carriage’, ‘on (a/the) horse’, ‘on (a/the) skateboard’, ‘on (a/the) scooter’, and ‘on (a/the) moped’. The indefinite and definite articles before the noun are usually optional.
10. Correct placement of prepositional phrases according to their grammatical function in the sentence
Prepositional phrases can function as adverbs of manner, adverbs of place, and adverbs of time within the sentence and should be placed in this order: 1) Adverb of Manner: ‘The boy left with slow steps’, 2) Adverb of Place: ‘The boy left with a slow pace through the woods’, and 3) Adverb of Time: ‘The boy left with a slow pace through the woods at night’.
11. The use of the adjective “much” as a quantifier modifying non-countable nouns
Quantifiers are noun markers (noun, noun phrases, adjectives, or adjective phrases) that precede the noun to express quantities that are not exact as ‘several’, ‘many’, ‘some’, ‘a couple of’, ‘a great deal of’, ‘a large amount of’, ‘a small amount of’, ‘all of’, ‘(adverb ‘almost) all’, ‘a lot of’, ‘lots of’, ‘a bit of’, ‘a little’, ‘enough’, ‘no’, ‘not (adverbs ‘barely/hardly) any’, ‘plenty of’, ‘most’, ‘each’, ‘every’, and ‘much’. In everyday conversation, using ‘much’ with non-countable nouns in affirmative sentences sounds too formal. Instead, ‘much’ should be avoided in conversation as in ‘My sister got much bread’ and be replaced by other quantifiers like in ‘My sister got a lot of bread’, or ‘My sister got lots of bread’, but ‘much’ can be used in conversation if we add the adverb of quantity ‘too’ before ‘much’ like in ‘My sister got too much bread’. ‘Much’ is also used in negative statements and in questions such as ‘How much time do you have left?’, or ‘I don’t have much patience left’.
12. Adjectives and their order in the sentence
In English, adjectives are placed before nouns and this should be done by following a strict order according to the type of noun description we want to give. To remember this adjective order, I created my mnemonics as follows: ‘A number of obsolete small straight/long clean ancient cerulean plaid Ottoman muslin pants’.
1) Article (A), 2) Number (number of), 3) Opinion (Observation) (obsolete), 4) Size (small), 5) Shape (or Length) (straight or long), 6) Condition (clean), 7) Age (ancient), 8) Color (cerulean), 9) Pattern (plaid), 10) Origin (Nationality or Religion) (Ottoman), 11) material (muslin), 12) Purpose (pants).
These adjectives that follow the above order before the noun are called ‘cumulative adjectives’ because they are not considered equal in importance concerning the noun, and they must not be separated by commas. When adjectives belong to the same category, they are called ‘coordinate adjectives’ because they are considered equal in importance to the noun –as opposed to cumulative adjectives that follow the above hierarchical order —, so they must be separated by commas. The coordinating conjunction ‘and’ can be added at the end of the adjective series but it is optional like in ‘The leafy, tall, narrow, (and) tubular tile tree’. Note that the last comma and the coordinating conjunction ‘and’ do not go between the last adjective ‘tubular’ and the noun ‘tile’ that here functions as a ‘material’ # 11 adjective of the noun ‘tree’.
Because adjectives ‘leafy’, tall’, ‘narrow’, and ‘tubular’ refer to the same adjective category, the physical description or appearance of the tree (‘shape or length’ # 5 adjective), their order is interchangeable as in ‘The tubular, tall, narrow, (and) leafy tile tree’, ‘The narrow, leafy, tubular (and) tall tile tree’, or ‘The tall, leafy, tubular, (and) narrow tile tree’.
13. Adjective clauses with the relative pronoun “whose”
The relative pronoun ‘whose’ is used to express possession in adjective clauses, and when it is placed before a noun or noun phrase, it can function as a possessive adjective because it describes either who (person) owns something (like ‘Mary’s dog’ or ‘Her dog’), or which (thing) owns something (like ‘the table’s legs or ‘its legs’). When an adjective clause contains the relative pronoun ‘whose’ is called a possessive adjective clause which can function in turn as Complement to the Subject, Complement to the Predicative of the Subject (when the main verb is the copula ‘be’), or Complement to the Object depending where they are located in the main sentence.
If we join two joining two independent clauses; i.e. ‘That is the man’. ‘His bike got stolen’ was a result of having a subordinate possessive adjective clause: ‘That is the man whose bike got stolen’, or ‘That is the man, the bike of whom, was stolen’ (too formal). ‘Whose bike got stolen’ is a Possessive Adjective Clause functioning as a Complement to the Predicative of the Subject because the main verb is the copula verb ‘is’. The relative pronoun ‘whose’ functions as a possessive adjective of the noun ‘bike’ to join two simple sentences that become one complex sentence. To join the two sentences then we must omit the possessive adjective (my, your, her, his, our, your, and their) and replace it with the relative pronoun ‘whose’ that functions once more like a possessive adjective to form the (possessive) adjective clause.
The mechanism repeats itself: ‘The woman started to cry’. ‘Her purse was lost’ = ‘The woman whose purse was lost started to cry’: Adjective Clause functioning as Complement to the Main Subject because it describes or modifies the noun ‘woman’ = ‘The woman, the purse of whom was lost, started to cry’ (too formal). In both cases, the dependent clause describes or modifies the noun ‘woman’. To join both independent sentences, we omit the possessive adjective (her) and replace it with the relative pronoun ‘whose’, which functions as a possessive adjective to form the possessive adjective clause.
Adjective clauses with ‘whose’ can describe nouns that function also as Direct Object. To recognize how an adjective clause functions as part of the direct object of the main clause, we need to remember that after the main clause (subject + verb + object) follows the subordinate possessive adjective clause (relative pronoun ‘whose’ + noun/noun phrase + verb/verb phrase) as in ‘I saw a tall boy whose ears were dirty’. Here ‘whose’ functions as a possessive adjective in an Adjective Clause functioning as a Complement to the Direct Object = ‘I saw a boy, the ears of whom were dirty’ (too formal). Other cases in which the adjective clause functions as a complement to the direct object: ‘They cheered up their sad friend whose supervisor had fired = ‘They cheered up their sad friend whose supervisor had fired’, ‘The girl bought some groceries whose (too formal)/which prices rose drastically’ = ‘The girl bought some groceries, the prices of which, rose drastically.
In the absence of the postponed noun, the relative pronoun ‘whose’ functions as a 1) possessive pronoun instead of as a 2) possessive adjective as in 1) ‘Out of all this food, whose is that? = 2) ‘Out of all this food, whose (sandwich) is that?’, 1) ‘Whose were they? = 2) ‘Whose (documents) were they?’.
14. Reduction of adjective clauses to appositive phrases
“Reduction” of a subordinate adjective clause is the shortened version of this type of clause to which native English speakers resort for the sake of linguistic convenience (to speak shorter and faster); therefore, the reduced version of these clauses does not change in meaning for their longer version. Appositive phrases or apposition are nouns or noun phrases that replace the main noun with some sort of ‘synonym’ as in ‘I am looking for my teacher, Ms. Garrett’, ‘Customers complained about the new rule, stopping purchase refunds on the phone, so they are very upset’ (note here that the gerund or present participle ‘stopping’ functions as a noun in the appositive phrase), ‘The reward I received, one week in Miami, is an amazing gift from my company’. In all these examples, the main subject and the appositive phrase are co-referential: both allude to the same referent.
The rules for reduction of both restrictive/defining/essential and non-restrictive/non-defining/non-essential adjective clauses are as follows: 1) to omit both the relative pronoun and the form of the verb ‘be’, 2) add commas between the appositive phrase in restrictive adjective clauses and leave the two commas in non-restrictive adjective clauses, 3) leave any article before the appositive phrase. E.g. ‘The University of Minnesota, which is the most prestigious institution, is very expensive’ = The University of Minnesota, the most prestigious institution, is expensive’, ‘The US president, who was an elder politician at the time of the elections, won the majority of the nation’s votes’ = ‘The U.S. president, an elder politician, won the majority of the nation’s votes’. In the second version of the sentences, we have appositive phrases after reducing their original adjective clauses.
15. Reduction of adjective clauses (essential and non-essential) to adjective phrases (gerund or present participle)
“Reduction” of a subordinate adjective clause is the shortened version of this type of clause to which native English speakers resort for the sake of linguistic convenience (to speak shorter and faster); therefore, the reduced version of these clauses does not change in meaning to their longer version. There are certain rules to reduce adjective clauses according to the verb tense that contains. With the progressive/continuous verb tense (present and past), the rules are the following:
1)Only those adjective clauses (essential and non-essential) that function as subjects of the clause (not as objects) can be reduced except for one case that is explained further down. Examples of clauses functioning as subjects of the clause modifying the main subject are as follows: ‘Carol’s best friend, who is traveling to Texas, is late’ = ‘Carol’s best friend, traveling to Texas is late’, ‘The teachers who were grading our tests all of a sudden left the classroom’ = ‘The teachers grading our tests all of a sudden left the classroom’. To reduce the clause, one must omit the relative pronoun (who, which, that but not whose or whom) and the ‘be’ verb leaving the gerund (or present participle, a nonfinite verb ending in -ing) as in ‘The man who is still working cannot come’ = ‘The man still working cannot come’, ‘The woman who was jaywalking risked her life’ = ‘The woman jaywalking risked her life. According to Jennifer ESL, non-restrictive/non-defining/non-essential adjective clauses keep their two original commas in the reduced adjective phrase version, while restrictive-defining, essential adjective clauses remain without commas in their reduced adjective phrase version.
With negative verbs in the progressive verb tense, one must omit the relative pronoun and the ‘be’ verb and leave the adverb of negation ‘not’ before the gerund/present participle as follows, ‘They like cooking organic food that is not sitting in the fridge for a week’ = ‘They like cooking organic food not sitting in the fridge for a week’.
2) With adjective clauses that contain the simple present verb, one must omit the relative pronoun (who, which, that but not whose or whom)and add the ending -ing (gerund/present participle) to the end of the bare infinitive verb of each clause, in this case, ‘study’, ‘work’, ‘smell’ as the following examples show, ‘The students who study hard are going to be rewarded’ = ‘The students studying hard are going be rewarded’, ‘The small car, which works fine, will leave’ = The small car, working fine, will leave’, ‘The room that smells better, will be picked out’ = ‘The room smelling better will be picked out’.
CLARIFICATION: REDUCTION is NOT possible when within the adjective clause there is an OBJECT that describes or modifies the SUBJECT of the MAIN clause like in ‘My MOTHER WHO I saw/WHOM I saw in Greece is coming for Christmas’. REDUCTION is possible, though, when the OBJECT within the adjective clause modifies the (DIRECT) OBJECT of the MAIN clause like in ‘The outage affected THE CITY’S POPULATION that is fighting the fear of looting’. The reduced version of this adjective clause — that functions as a Complement to the Direct Object — to an adjective phrase would be = ‘The outage affected the CITY’S POPULATION fighting the fear of looting’.
With negative verbs in the simple present tense, the same reduction procedure applies as that of the present progressive verb tense: one must omit the relative pronoun and the auxiliary verb ‘do and does’ and leave the adverb of negation ‘not’ before the gerund as follows: ‘The math students, who do not study hard, will be penalized’ = ‘The math students, not studying hard, will be penalized’, ‘The small car, which does not work fine, will be parked’ = ‘The small car, not working fine, will be parked’, ‘The room that does not smell nice will not be rented’ = ‘The room not smelling nice will not be rented’.
3) Adjective clauses that have a passive voice (‘be verb’ + past participle) can be reduced by applying the same procedure as in (1): leaving the past participle of the verb phrase as in ‘The blouse, which was paid by the lady, is expensive’ = ‘The blouse, paid by the lady, is expensive’, ‘The street that was painted by the workers was open’ = ‘The street painted by the workers was open’.
4) For adjective clauses that have prepositions such as ‘in’, ‘at’, ‘on’, and ‘with’ the same reduction procedure applies as in 1): ‘The cute boy who is on the right is happy’ = ‘The cute boy on the right is happy’, ‘The English teacher, who is with the student, is tutoring him’ = ‘The English teacher with the student is tutoring him’.
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