participle clauses used as relative clause

English as a Second Language English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
1

what is the differences of the following?
The snow which fell overnight has turned to ice vs The snow falling overnight has turned to ice.
The man who died in the accident came from Bulgaria vs The man dying in the accident came from Bulgaria.

thanks in advance!

2

I think the second sentences are just incorrect because they don;t relate to the past but to the present. In my opinion, it should be “the snow fallen overnight…”, “the man died in the accident…”.

3

As far as I know, we don’t use participle clauses to replace the relative clauses when the action in the relative clause happens before the one in the main clause does. Any other idea?

4

Hi Blue Snow, can you explain more?
I am confused with my teacher’s notes:
1)we can’t replace participle clauses with an -ing clause in the following examples:
eg The snow which fell overnight has turned to ice. (not The snow falling overight…) but
The snow which fell overnight has caused traffic chaos. (or The snow falling overnight has caused traffic chaos.)

  1. we can’t talk about a single, completed action in the defining relative clauses
    eg. The girl who fell over on the ice broke her arm. (not The girl falling over…) and
    I pulled off the sheets which covered the furniture. (or…sheets covering the furniture.)

And he also wrote 2 more examples which we can’t replace by the particples clause:
The man who died in the accident came from Bulgaria.
The woman who visited us last week has sent us a present.

5

Are you a Vietnamese too? Your teacher found these examples in a book that I also have. In the first sentence, the action has finished while in the second one it hasn’t. In the forth sentence, the two actions in 2 clauses are considered to supply each other or we can say they happened simultaneously and this is one case of present participle usages. For more details, find the book A practical English grammar by Thomson and Martinet.