[alexlearner]

I would like to write down some similar sentences below.

(1a) The works I am presenting by the various artists in my gallery are all very creative and splendid.

(1b) The works by the various artists I am presenting in my gallery are all very creative and splendid

(1c) The various artists' works I am presenting in my gallery are all very creative and splendid.

(2a) The best essays I am going to read to you by some students in a local school talk about the latest computer technology.

(2b) The best essays by some students in a local school I am going to read to you talk about the latest computer technology.

(2c) Some students' best essays I am going to read to you talk about the latest computer technology.


I am not sure which sentences sound natural, if any, in these groups. What are the grammar mistakes in them? Please help me. Thank you very much for your time and help.

[susan53]

1 a-c are all possible grammatically, but if there's anything unnatural it's the full stop. The use of all makes me expect the sentence to continue - but....

However, you've given the sentences completely out of context and it's impossible to assess naturalness without it. For example, are they written or spoken? If spoken, then (c) is unlikely because of the heavuily premodified noun phrase the various artists' works, which is a feature of written, not spoken English. As I said in a previous post, in spoken English we would tend to chunk the information because of processing problems. The speaker is encoding what s/he wants to say, and the listener decoding it in real time, and "one piece of information at a time" is much easier to encode/decode than a phrase where you have to keep several pre-modifiers in mind before you finally get to find out what is being talked about. So in spoken English (1b) and (1c) would be more likely.

[susan53]

The sentences in 2 are all unnatural - there's far too much information all mixed up together. I'd rephrase them as :

I'm going to read you the best essays about the latest computer technology written by students in a local school.

or

Some students in a local school wrote some essays on the latest computer technology, and I'm going to read you the best ones.