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Can we omit the pronoun in the following sentences,

1) "Clare, who is sleeping in the couch, is Mike's daughter."

2) "The man, who was smoking a cigarette, hurried home."

3) "A boy who is jumping on the bed is Freddy's son."

into these sentences respectively,

a) "Clare, sleeping in the couch, is Mike's daughter."

b) "The man, smoking a cigarette, hurried home."

c) "A boy jumping on the bed is Freddy's son."

and why?

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    It's not about omission, but about using a different clause type. The supplementary clauses in 1) and 2) are relatives, while in a) and b) they are gerund-participials. Relatives are finite; gerund-participials are non-finite, so there's a significant syntactic difference between the two. Semantically, though, they are the same. Btw, we don't normally use "knowing" in a progressive clause like 2). – BillJ Nov 13 '18 at 14:43
  • Ty, @BillJ. I'll edit it –  Nov 13 '18 at 15:30
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    @BillJ It is done :) –  Nov 13 '18 at 15:38
  • 3 and C are both very strange; they make no sense unless you’re saying that any boy who jumps on the bed is automatically Freddy’s son. In which case it’s also strange, because that’s not how procreation works. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Nov 13 '18 at 18:33

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