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Once I was confused as to which version I should choose in the following sentence.

Any person (comes/coming) late (is) not admitted

It turned out that coming is the right choice. However, I still would like to know which grammar topic deals with this kind of sentences/constructions.

Any ideas?

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  • It's not really a matter of "what grammar is involved here?" It's like the sign on (for example) a nightclub door Unaccompanied females not admitted. Or newspaper headlines, come to that. They're only interested in conveying the message/grabbing your attention in the smallest number of words possible. Grammar is not a consideration. Nov 9, 2013 at 19:20
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    ...having said that, your example looks unusual/non-standard to me. Normally it's Latecomers not admitted Nov 9, 2013 at 19:23
  • Thanks for the clarification and the examples. However, being a non native speaker, how would I know that coming/arriving is correct while comes/arrives is not in sentences like: Anyone (arriving) after the start of the play is not allowed in until the interval. Admittedly, the previous example was made up but thought it could make the point without having to look for the latter one. Native speakers resort to "it sounds right/natural/awkward", but what about foreigners?
    – learner
    Nov 10, 2013 at 5:18
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    To repeat what I said before, there isn't really any concept of "grammar" or "correct English" in things like signs and newspaper headlines, so I don't think they're suitable subjects for ELL. On the other hand, it's quite reasonable to ask what (if any) difference there is between Anyone arriving after the start of the play is not allowed in until the interval and the same sentence using who arrives and/or will not be instead (imho, the short answer is "None"). Just don't ask for an analysis of the "cut-down" usages in signs, because it's often very non-standard. Nov 10, 2013 at 21:32
  • Technically, grammar does play a role. We can tell this because the sign is unlikely to say "admitted not females unaccompanied". As you can see, the word order isn't entirely random, and the words are in fact combining in a way that can be described by a grammar--something that might be of interest to a few linguists. But it's not Standard English grammar, and (in my opinion) there's not a lot of use in describing the specialized grammar of signs to English language learners.
    – user230
    Nov 17, 2013 at 15:13

2 Answers 2

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In this situation, we could use the verb form with an -s, instead of the -ing form, if we add the word who:

Anyone arriving after the start of the performance will not be admitted until the intermission.

Anyone who arrives after the start of the performance will not be admitted until the intermission.

Everyone signing up before the deadline will receive a free t-shirt.

Everyone who signs up before the deadline will receive a free t-shirt.

I can see where this would be confusing, though, because that's not always the case with plural pronouns:

Everyone eats cake for their birthday. Not everyone sees the forest through the trees.

The key is that the sentence is really structured like this:

Everyone .. does something.

and we are dealing with some qualifying clause between those two sentence parts.

For example:

Everyone .. will dance the chicken dance.

becomes either:

Everyone who attends the wedding reception will do the chicken dance.

or:

Everyone attending the wedding will do the chicken dance.

One more example:

Nobody sitting in the family section is allowed to drink alcohol.
Nobody who sits in the family section is allowed to drink alcohol.

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  • Excellent! +1 The keyword here is "qualifying clause"
    – learner
    Nov 17, 2013 at 17:41
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    A quick Google search shows that it is called "restrictive clause"
    – learner
    Nov 17, 2013 at 17:52
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Any person (comes/coming) late (is) not admitted

More simply:

Coming late is not admitted.

The part "coming late" is a gerund and the subject of the sentence. As to "is" in your sentence, you might want to look up subject-verb agreement.

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    "Coming late is not admitted" by itself sounds wrong to me. "Coming late is not permitted" would be fine.
    – J.R.
    Nov 17, 2013 at 11:41
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    That's because admit here means "to allow to enter; let in", and you can't allow an abstract concept ("coming late") to enter, only a person.
    – user230
    Nov 17, 2013 at 16:31
  • +2! (That's because admit here means "to allow to enter; let in", and you can't allow an abstract concept ("coming late") to enter, only a person") = Great. Forgot the diff but not anymore.
    – learner
    Nov 4, 2015 at 9:45

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