Quote:
1-A ship rapidly approaching picked up the signal.
2-A rapidly approaching ship picked up the signal.
3-They sent a message to a rapidly approaching ship.
4-They sent a message to a ship rapidly approaching.
5-The ship rapidly approaching picked up the signal.
6-The rapidly approaching ship picked up the signal.
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I agree with her (Caseopia's) analysis, but I do not agree with her conclusion. The first sentence needs the missing words to be supplied before it makes sense, then there is still not enough information. "A ship that was rapidly approaching picked up the signal" raises the question "Rapidly approaching what?"
I would not use the first sentence. The second sentence is perfectly good, and the clear implication is that the ship is rapidly approaching the speaker.
The situation is similar with the other two sentence pairs. The "rapidly approaching ship" is fine with me, but I don't care for "ship rapidly approaching".
(Sorry for the late reply.)
:)