The boy having won a prize was much praised.

[sitifan]

The boy having won a prize was much praised.
(Ho's Complete English Grammar, Book 5, page 26)
I think the quoted sentence is not grammatical, is it?

 

[5jj]

It is not.

 

[probus]

Some commas would clarify it: the boy, having won a prize, was much praised. That would make it grammatical, strictly speaking, but it would nevertheless be unnatural.

Such constructs are easily formed if one translates word by word from Latin to English, and my high school teachers never tired of telling us not to do that because it produces unnatural English sentences.

 

[Tarheel]

Perhaps:

He won a prize, and he was congratulated by everybody for a job well done.

 

[tedmc]

Some commas would clarify it: the boy, having won a prize, was much praised. That would make it grammatical, strictly speaking, but it would nevertheless be unnatural.

Such constructs are easily formed if one translates word by word from Latin to English, and my high school teachers never tired of telling us not to do that because it produces unnatural English sentences.

Other than the commas, is the sentence unnatural because of the part "much praised"?

 

[probus]

I'll defer to @5jj on that because it was he who found it ungrammatical.

 

[emsr2d2]

Without commas, it's wrong. With commas, it's grammatical but unnatural in modern-day English. I might expect "he was much praised" in writing from before the 20th century.