We met a girl.

[Maybo]

I am doing a participles exercise. I need to combine the following sentence using a participle.

Question: We met a girl. She was carrying a basket of flowers on her head.
Answer: We met a girl carrying a basket of flowers on her head.

Does the answer suggests that they met more than one girl and were trying to specify which one?
Is the sentence equivalent to "We met a girl who was carrying a basket of flowers on her head"?

If I don't want to specify which girl, can I say "We met a girl, who was carrying a basket of flowers on her head"?

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

I am doing a participles exercise. I need to combine the following sentence using a participle.

Question: We met a girl. She was carrying a basket of flowers on her head.

That's not a question. It's an example.

Answer: We met a girl carrying a basket of flowers on her head.

Does the second example suggest that they met more than one girl and were trying to specify which one?

No. It would have to say the girl.

Is the sentence equivalent to "We met a girl who was carrying a basket of flowers on her head"?

Yes.

If I don't want to specify which girl,

You can't. There is only one. If you want to tell us there were more, you would have to say the girl.

can I say "We met a girl, who was carrying a basket of flowers on her head"?

No. The comma is incorrect. If you want to use a comma, say: We met a girl, and she was . . . .

Did you make up your examples? It's always better to find real examples than to invent them.

 

[Maybo]

Did you make up your examples? It's always better to find real examples than to invent them.

Both sample sentences are from the exercise. https://www.englishgrammar.org/participles-exercise-4/

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Both sample sentences are from the exercise. https://www.englishgrammar.org/participles-exercise-4/

Good! Then "We met a girl carrying a basket of flowers on her head" is correct. It does not imply that there is more than one girl.

 

[Maybo]

can I say "We met a girl, who was carrying a basket of flowers on her head"?

No. The comma is incorrect. If you want to use a comma, say: We met a girl, and she was . . . .

Is it because when we use "a girl", we don't know whom we are talking about so we don't need a comma before "who"?

 

[Tarheel]

We met a girl who was carrying a basket of flowers on her head.

Where is the noun phrase? (Hint: It's underlined.)