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I found a sentence written by an English native speaker as the following:

"On every Monday, we would go to the supermarket to buy food, even though we have a market closer but with food not as fresh"

I find it hard to understand the grammar point here: " ...but with food not as fresh" I think they are missing a verb here to be grammatically correct. If I was in this case, I would write " ...but with food which is not as fresh".

Could anyone tell me if the native speaker's sentence is correct? If yes, why could "not as fresh" come after the noun "food".That sentence is just for speaking only, isn't it? It really drove me nuts

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    That is a perfectly idiomatic sentence in speech or in writing. You can think of not as fresh as a predication about the food: but with food [which is] not as fresh though there is no relative and no form of the verb to BE. It's not that the speaker forgot to use those words or is being lazy; that kind of modifying phrase is common, especially with comparatives. Here's a less expensive model but with an engine not as powerful.
    – TimR
    Commented Jun 13, 2018 at 10:25
  • @Tᴚoɯɐuo I guess that "a less powerful engine" would be a better paraphrase of your example, while in the original example "with less fresh food" might suggest less food rather than, uh, wilted or stale food.
    – Chaim
    Commented Jun 13, 2018 at 14:07
  • As I know, We need a verb before as...as structure. For example: This engine is not as powerful (as the previous one). Why didn't they use a verb coming after the noun "food".However, I know "food" is not the main subject so It doesn't need a verb coming after and they all confused me
    – hoangtu9x
    Commented Jun 13, 2018 at 15:05

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I think that it is a grammatically-correct usage.

"On every Monday, we would go to the supermarket to buy food, even though we have a market closer but with food not as fresh"

is exactly the same as

"On every Monday, we would go to the supermarket to buy food, even though we have a market closer but without food as fresh"

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  • So "as fresh" here functioned as a preposition phrase to supplement the noun "food"?
    – hoangtu9x
    Commented Jun 13, 2018 at 15:10
  • "As fresh" is an adjectival prepositional phrase referring to the noun "food".
    – Jawel7
    Commented Jun 13, 2018 at 15:13
  • But, I looked up in the Oxford dictionary I didn't find any structure like that oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/as_3 . Could you show me more details
    – hoangtu9x
    Commented Jun 13, 2018 at 15:25
  • I think that its long version is like; "We have a market closer but with food which is not as fresh as it is closer(its distance)"
    – Jawel7
    Commented Jun 13, 2018 at 17:11
  • Hi Jawel, It makes perfect sense to me. That's also what I have been thinking of to get this point across.
    – hoangtu9x
    Commented Jun 14, 2018 at 3:03

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