Extended participial attributes: das von mir gelesene Buch

Der vor zwei Wochen von der Kommission vorgelegte Bericht wird morgen diskutiert.The report submitted by the commission two weeks ago will be discussed tomorrow.

German can grow the participle in front of a noun into a whole block: article, then the participle's own objects, adverbs and prepositional phrases, then the participle itself with its adjective ending, then the noun. That block — an extended participial attribute — does the work of a full relative clause.

Quick shortcut: drop the relative pronoun and the finite verb, turn the verb into a participle with an adjective ending, and move the rest in front of the noun. If the head noun was the object of an active clause, the attribute normally comes out passive and the old subject becomes an agent phrase: das Buch, das ich gelesen habe → das von mir gelesene Buch.

From relative clause to participial block

Many relative clauses can be condensed into a participial attribute, and a participial attribute can usually be expanded back into a relative clause — though the participle can't preserve every distinction a finite verb makes (tense, mood, modality):

• das Buch, das ich gelesen habe → das von mir gelesene Buch
• der Zug, der vor einer Stunde angekommen ist → der vor einer Stunde angekommene Zug
• ein Problem, das seit Jahren wächst → ein seit Jahren wachsendes Problem

Three things change on the way in:

• The relative pronoun and the finite verb disappear; the verb comes back as a participle.
• When an active clause is recast with a Partizip II, its subject can reappear as an agent phrase with von + dative (or durch + accusative): das Gesetz, das das Parlament verabschiedet hat → das vom Parlament verabschiedete Gesetz.
• The participle marks only ongoing vs. completed (and active vs. passive); it doesn't carry the original clause's full tense — the surrounding sentence supplies the time frame.

Which participle

Same three-way split as in participles as adjectives:

The participle always sits last in the block, right before the noun, and takes the normal adjective ending for the article, gender, case and number.

Word order inside the block

Read the block as if it were the relative clause, minus the pronoun and the verb:

Everything that was after the relative pronoun keeps roughly its clause order (time, then manner, then place), and the participle takes the slot the finite verb had — at the end.

zu + Partizip I: the "to be done" one

A special variant uses zu + the infinitive + -d + ending. It has a passive meaning plus necessity or possibility — "that must (or can) be …-ed":

• die zu lösende Aufgabe — the task that has to be solved
• ein nicht zu unterschätzendes Risiko — a risk that must not be underestimated
• die zu erwartenden Kosten — the costs to be expected

It rewrites with sein … zu or a modal passive: die Aufgabe, die zu lösen ist / gelöst werden muss.

Reading a long one

Formal German can stack several modifiers. To parse one, jump from the article straight to the noun, then unpack the middle:

der in der letzten Sitzung von allen Fraktionen einstimmig beschlossene Antrag

1. Article der … noun Antrag — that's the frame.
2. The word right before the noun, beschlossene, is the participle — the anchor.
3. Rebuild it as a relative clause: der Antrag, der in der letzten Sitzung von allen Fraktionen einstimmig beschlossen wurde.

Register

Extended participial attributes belong to formal written German — journalism, law, academic and official texts. In speech and informal writing a relative clause is more natural, and stacking two or three attributes in one phrase quickly becomes hard to read. Growing the block further, with its own nested attributes, is a C1 topic.

Common mistakes

• ❌ das gelesene von mir Buch → ✅ das von mir gelesene Buch (the participle sits right before the noun; its modifiers come before it, not after)
• ❌ das von mir gelesen Buch → ✅ das von mir gelesene Buch (the participle still needs its adjective ending)
• ❌ das von die Regierung beschlossene Gesetz → ✅ das von der Regierung beschlossene Gesetz (the agent is von + dative)
• ❌ der angekommene vor einer Stunde Zug → ✅ der vor einer Stunde angekommene Zug (adverbials go inside the block, before the participle)
• ❌ die zu lösende Aufgaben → ✅ die zu lösenden Aufgaben (plural ending on the participle too)

Quick check

Turn each relative clause into an extended participial attribute with the right ending.

1. der Brief, der gestern geschrieben wurde → der ___ Brief
2. die Kinder, die im Garten spielen → die ___ Kinder
3. ein Auto, das in Deutschland gebaut wurde → ein ___ Auto
4. die Aufgabe, die man lösen muss → die ___ Aufgabe
5. die Touristen, die gerade angekommen sind → die ___ Touristen

Key takeaways

• An extended participial attribute packs a relative clause in front of a noun: article + modifiers + participle + ending + noun.
• Choose the participle for meaning: Partizip I = active and ongoing, Partizip II from a transitive verb = passive and completed, Partizip II from a sein-verb = active and completed.
• The participle stands last, right before the noun, with the normal adjective ending; the finite verb and relative pronoun of the clause disappear, and a passive agent becomes von + dative.
• zu + Partizip I (die zu lösende Aufgabe) means "that must or can be …-ed".
• It's formal written style; a relative clause is the natural spoken equivalent.
• To read one, jump from the article to the noun, find the participle just before the noun, and rebuild it as a relative clause.