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SupportSanity

(1,264 posts) Sun Feb 2, 2025, 12:19 PM Feb 2

Need help with explaining the grammar of a sentence [View all]

There used to be a lot of commercials on tv to sell paintings by
"starving artists"

I realize that grammatically, starving artists can be taken two ways:

artists who are starving
-and-
the act of starving the artists (nobody buys their paintings so the artists starve)

Can anyone explain grammatically (as in verbs, adverbs, objects, etc) the second interpretation (the act of starving artists)?

Thanks.

13 replies

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Need help with explaining the grammar of a sentence [View all] SupportSanity Feb 2 OP

Starving artists are artists who are starving. Hope that helps! dchill Feb 2 #1

Well... some_of_us_are_sane Feb 2 #2

If "starving artists" means the act of causing artists to go hungry, Ocelot II Feb 2 #3

I can diagram the sentence for you but not online. mahatmakanejeeves Feb 2 #4

diagram would be great SupportSanity Feb 2 #5

I think I might have it. Can anyone confirm? Thanks. SupportSanity Feb 2 #6

It's a claudette Feb 2 #8

Yes. I got it. Gerund it is. "starving" as a gerund . Thanks. nt SupportSanity Feb 2 #9

I think claudette Feb 2 #7

You sure it's not artists who starve people? Iggo Feb 2 #10

Just a minute, Andy. Just a goddarned minute. GreenWave Feb 2 #11

There are two ways to look at ... SupportSanity Feb 2 #12

You have pointed out that "starving artists" is ambiguous. Jeebo Feb 2 #13