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I have zero background in linguistics, so forgive me if this is trivial.

The Wikipedia article for relative clauses claims that, with regard to the positioning of the relative clause, "English, for example, is generally head-first".

However, intuitively, it makes sense that a "reduced object passive relative clause" would be able to precede the head noun. Yet, I cannot find any example online where such a case serves as an example of the usage of a reduced relative clause.

In the 2009 University of Georgia Classic City Classic tournament, this sentence appears in one question:

Formed by reattaching the ends of a closed band after cutting the band and giving it a half-twist, name this structure named after a German mathematician, a one-sided, nonorientable surface.

Of interest is this:

Formed by reattaching the ends of a closed band after cutting the band and giving it a half-twist

Hence my question: can reduced relative clauses precede a head noun, or if not, what sort of grammatical structure is this?

Academic sources would be appreciated.

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    This is a quiz question, with its own specialized grammatical conventions. So the answer to your question is Yes, on a quiz show. More generally, reduced relative clauses are common initially as appositive clauses: Raised in the tradition of his ancestors, Mr. Smith is against anything new.
    – John Lawler
    Commented Nov 14, 2018 at 1:33
  • In other words, it's not grammatical in general English. There's no reduced relative clause preceding a head noun here. Instead, what you have is a noun phrase followed by a comma. Read it is as such, (prepending "It is " if you please) replacing the terminal comma with a colon. Then it makes sense.
    – Kris
    Commented Nov 14, 2018 at 8:06
  • This question is based on a misconception/ parsing of incomplete structure.
    – Kris
    Commented Nov 14, 2018 at 8:09
  • @Kris are you sure? After his comment, I looked up ‘appositive relative clauses’ which seem to be referenced in the literature of the topic as ARCs. And I’m certain that, as in his example, I’ve seen reduced ARCs in formal writing before - not just in this particular niche.
    – hpm
    Commented Nov 14, 2018 at 10:43
  • Note the here in my comment. HTH.
    – Kris
    Commented Nov 15, 2018 at 9:30

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As far as I can tell, "Formed by reattaching the ends of a closed band after cutting the band and giving it a half-twist" is not a (complete) relative clause: there is no finite/tensed verb, and also no relative pronoun (that said, relative pronouns are not found in all relative clauses, so the absence of a finite verb is a more important criterion).

It is a "participle clause" (I'm not sure about the exact terminology). While these are sometimes analyzed as "reduced relative clauses" in certain sentences, I don't see any reason to adopt that analysis in this sentence.

As has been mentioned in the comments, its position in this sentence is unconventional from the perspective of typical English usage: it follows the specialized conventions for tournament questions of this type.

It also doesn't directly "precede the noun", which is what is normally being discussed when talking about head-final vs. head-initial word orders.

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  • Summary: It's ungrammatical.
    – Kris
    Commented Nov 15, 2018 at 9:30
  • @Kris: If you want to say that, then post your own answer saying that. I'm not sure that I agree with that summary.
    – herisson
    Commented Nov 15, 2018 at 9:32
  • I've already expressed as much in my comments at OP. There can be no answer when the Q is "based on a misconception/ parsing of incomplete structure. "
    – Kris
    Commented Nov 15, 2018 at 9:36

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