Word order of participial modifiers and proper nouns


This is a follow-up to this earlier question. I want to say that I met a person and they were drunk at the time. Which should I use:




  1. I saw intoxicated John.




  2. I saw the intoxicated John.




  3. I saw John intoxicated.




I know I could say I saw John, who was intoxicated, but I want to say it with one clause. How does it work for present participles?




  1. I found sleeping John.




  2. I found the sleeping John.




  3. I found John sleeping.




Any rule of thumb for that?



Answer




I saw John intoxicated [/drunk as a lord] [/happy once].



and



I found John sleeping [like a log].



are 'object-orientated depictive constructions' ( Asada ). As these necessarily involve complex predicates, the adjectives (participial or otherwise) must follow the noun they modify (here, the object).


Attributive adjectives can of course be used, but don't often sit well with proper nouns (or pronouns):



*/?I found tipsy John.


*I found tipsy him.


I found a / the tipsy man.



Where both constructions are available, there can be a difference in meaning:



We found the dead horse. [that the kids had told us about]


We found the horse dead. [its owner should have phoned us (Supervets) sooner]



(obvious whiz- or to be-deletion in the second case; perhaps inferrable in the first: see J Lawler ; end of post )


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