tongue twister

[Itasan]

"A cup of coffee in a copper colored pot."
Somebody translated this into Japanese as a sentence,
like "A cup of coffee in a copper shone the pot."
I don't think it's a complete sentence. Just part
of a sentence like "(I see) a cup of coffee in a
pot which has the color of copper."
This 'colored' is not a verb but an adjective
modifying 'pot', right? In that case, shouldn't
the last part be 'a copper-colored pot'?
Thank you.

[Casiopea]

"a copper shone the pot" is incorrect. "shone" functions as a verb in that sentence which makes "a copper" the subject, "shone", a transitive verb, and "the pot" its object; i.e., the copper did something to the pot. It *shone it. "shone" isn't a transitive verb. We're looking for an adjective; i.e., Japanese, dou-ka iro (?), copper (in) color. The pot is copper in colour.

With or without a dash works:

EX: copper-coloured
EX: copper coloured

I'd go without the dash; "copper coloured pot" isn't ambiguous.