grammar - What is the difference between the two sentences? 'crying kid' and 'kid crying'

1. I comforted a crying kid.



2. I comforted a kid crying.

Is there any difference of the two sentences above in meaning?

Answer

(1) I comforted a crying kid.

(2) I comforted a kid crying.

Pragmatically, there’s no real difference, since they both mean “Some kid was crying and I comforted it”.

You didn't ask, but grammatically there is a difference in the role of "crying". In (1) the pre-modifier "crying" is a verb phrase (VP) whose head is the gerund-participle "crying", but in (2), the post-modifying verb "crying" is head of a non-finite gerund-participial clause, whose meaning is similar to the relative clause in I comforted a kid who was crying.