Timeline for Classification of Relative Clauses in English
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
12 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Mar 23, 2019 at 21:25 | comment | added | amI | Don't forget that 'that' and 'what' are at least semantically interchangeable in relative phrases: "The dog what bit me ran away." | |
| Nov 27, 2013 at 0:16 | comment | added | jlawler | For many people it probly is a proform, just as whom is now perceived as a high register term, and by him and I is, likewise. There are many presuppositions buried in the argument that not everyone subscribes to. If you're rehearsing the imperative "you understood", I've already heard it. As I said (twice now) there's a missing reference in the relative clause, just as there is in the man he saw, just as there is in Ever been to Anchorage?, or Bill wants to paint the bathroom. There's lots of gapped, deleted, missing, uninserted, moved, NPs. They're not there. They're imaginal | |
| Nov 26, 2013 at 22:47 | comment | added | Tim Osborne | Further: If "that" were a straightforward complementizer and not a relative proform, the following relative clause (with "that" as the subject) is predicted to be bad: "(the man) that laughed". Relative clauses with the relative pronoun as the subject do not allow omission of the relative pronoun, e.g. "*The man __ laughed was annoying". In other words, these data are consistent with an analysis that views "that" as a subject relative pronoun. The alternative analysis that sees "that" as a complementizer can hardly address these cases. | |
| Nov 26, 2013 at 22:29 | comment | added | Tim Osborne | Observe: "(Fred said) that he saw it" vs. "*(Fred said) that he saw". The second sentence is incomplete and thus unacceptable; "saw" needs an object. If "that" is always a complementizer and never a relative pronoun, then the clauses it introduces should not allow the incompleteness. A relative pronoun is a relative pronoun because it completes the clause it introduces. That is exactly what "that" (as a relative pronoun) is doing. It is filling the "gap", completing the clause it introduces. | |
| Nov 26, 2013 at 21:54 | comment | added | jlawler | I'm afraid I don't understand what "If that were always a real complementizer, the relative clause introduced by that would not be incomplete in a sense" could possibly mean, let alone what position it might argue for. | |
| Nov 26, 2013 at 21:14 | comment | added | Tim Osborne | I am no fan of empty elements in syntactic analysis, but to speak of them metaphorically is helpful. I think your response does not acknowledge the point I wanted to make. If "that" were always a real complementizer, the relative clause introduced by "that" would not be incomplete in a sense. To state that "that" in such cases is a complentizer and not a relative pronoun is to make the same mistake as stating that it is a relative pronoun and not a complementizer. The answer lies somewhere in between. | |
| Nov 26, 2013 at 17:31 | comment | added | jlawler | Like I said above, "if there is any coreference in the relative clause, it is coreference of the sort called "understood" (also, "deleted", "a gap", "zero", "Pro" (of two varieties), or some other term)". Though to claim that a Gap is "present" is perhaps to get carried away on wings of metaphor. | |
| Nov 26, 2013 at 17:08 | comment | added | Tim Osborne | Your answer overlooks a major fact that supports the analysis as a relative proform: there is in fact a sort "gap" present, and it must remain empty, e.g. *the man that I met him..." If "that" were a straightforward complementizer, the object "him" should be possible. Observe the similarity to a true relative pronoun: "*the man who I met him...". In my view, the best analysis grants "that" an intermediate status between a relative pronoun and a complementizer. | |
| Nov 26, 2013 at 17:02 | comment | added | Tim Osborne | Your answer overlooks one major fact that supports the analysis as a relative proform: there is in fact a sort "gap" present, e.g. | |
| Nov 24, 2013 at 16:20 | history | edited | jlawler | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Nov 24, 2013 at 4:37 | vote | accept | Kaninchen | ||
| Nov 21, 2013 at 4:54 | history | answered | jlawler | CC BY-SA 3.0 |