The man…(a) of carrying out the burglary was released…(b) by police.
A. (a) to be suspected - (b) followed questioning
B. (a) having been suspected - (b) following questioned.
C. (a) suspected - (b) following questioning
D. (a) being suspected - (b) followed questioned.
I am of two minds between B and C. Can everyone please help me? Thank you.
IMO, only “C” is right.
“B” is definitely wrong.
I am wondered if you will explain why B is wrong to me? I think B is ok when it comes to reduction of perfect form?
I’d say definitely C.
following questioning = after interrogation
Thank you everyone. I take your points now. ^^
***** NOT A TEACHER *****
Hello, Quang:
What an excellent question!
I have found some information that may interest you.
One book gives this sentence:
“The woman who had been invited to the reception laughed with embarrassment.”
As you know, the underlined words constitute a defining adjective clause. It is necessary to identify which woman “laughed with embarrassment.”
Then, as you said, the book says that we can reduce this to:
“The woman, having been invited to the reception, laughed with embarrassment.”
Please notice that the so-called perfect passive participle is not defining, so there are COMMAS. The commas indicate that the words “having been invited to the reception” are not essential to the meaning of the sentence. In other words, it seems to be just a reminder of something that we may already know.
Now let’s apply those principles to your sentence:
“The man who had been suspected of carrying out the burglary was released following questioning by the police.”
I believe that you are correct: we could reduce it to:
“The man, having been suspected of carrying out the burglary, was released following questioning by the police.”
I think that we can agree that “B” is wrong because:
a. There are no commas around “having been suspected of carrying out the burglary.”
b. It uses “questioned.” It should use “questioning,” the gerund of “to question.” (As Cristina told us, we could use the noun “interrogation” instead.)
James
Credit for that information goes to Bruce Lilies in A BASIC GRAMMAR OF MODERN ENGLISH (1979), PAGE 110.
The main reason why B is wrong and C is right is -
In B the past participle ‘questioned’ is left hanging in the air and is not connected to a subject
In C there is no such problem here because ‘questioning’ functions as a noun and could easily be another noun like ‘investigation’ ‘examination’ or whatever.
Hello,
Could the original sentence be rewritten as
The man suspected/having been suspected of carrying out the burglary was released following being questioned by police.
to mean:
The man suspected/having been suspected of carrying out the burglary was released after being questioned by police.
I actually think it would be incorrect but could you explain why so? Can “following being questioned” be used only with the meaning “as a result of being questioned” (and not “after being questioned”)?
Sorry if this is too confusing. 
You have related the past participle back to the subject (the man) but I think ‘following being questioned’ is an unfortunate run-on and would, as you suggest, be better expressed by ‘after being questioned’ or simply ‘after he had been questioned’.
Thank you, Alan!