in relation to

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Marius Hancu

#545264 Wed, 23 Jul 08 03:54 AM

The guy says from the very beginning

It would be hard if not actually senseless

because we're dealing with a catch 22 situation.

Marius Hancu

Joined on Wed, Apr 26 2006

Montreal, Canada

Veteran Member (11,673)

Mr Wordy

#545278 Wed, 23 Jul 08 04:24 AM

Taka
So even though it's kind of redundant, if anything, 'in relation to the target' is within the scope of the that-clause; it doesn't modify the verb 'say.' Is that how you see it?

To me it's technically ambiguous; it could be either. Compare these similarly-structured examples:

This is the hall in which I made my speech about civil liberties. -- "in which" modifies "I made my speech"

This is the principle to which one could say the judgement adheres. -- "to which" modifies "the judgement adheres"

So, the sentence structure does not distinguish. However, in your sentence it doesn't matter because it doesn't affect the meaning. The only meaningful way that "in relation to which" can modify "say" is if it's referring to the content of what you say. And that's just the same as directly modifying "concerto A got nearer to the target than concerto B".

Taka
It would be hard if not actually senseless to specify a target in relation to which one could say that concerto A was better than concerto B.

Exactly right.

Mr Wordy

Joined on Tue, May 27 2008

Regular Member (960)

Native British English speaker

Clauses, Sentence structures, Verbs

Taka

#545289 Wed, 23 Jul 08 04:40 AM

Let me ask in a different way, Mr. Wordy.

Does this sentence sound natural?

In relation to the target, he said it.

Taka

Joined on Tue, Sep 7 2004

Japan

Senior Member (2,266)

Mr Wordy

#545384 Wed, 23 Jul 08 12:05 PM

Taka
Does this sentence sound natural?
In relation to the target, he said it.

It doesn't sound very natural to me. I can't imagine why anyone would want to say this rather than "He said it in relation to the target". However, the sentence is grammatically valid in my opinion. "In relation to the target, he said blah blah..." is much more natural.

(Incidentally, I later managed to think of a single sentence that illustrates the ambiguity I mentioned earlier, which I may as well share with you now I'm here:

This is the tone of voice in which one could say the report should be delivered.

This could mean:

One could say "the report should be delivered" in this tone of voice.

One could say "the report should be delivered in this tone of voice".)

Mr Wordy

Marius Hancu

#545387 Wed, 23 Jul 08 12:06 PM

> "In relation to the target, he said blah blah..." is much more natural.

Right

Marius Hancu

Taka

#545562 Wed, 23 Jul 08 06:27 PM

Mr Wordy
"In relation to the target, he said blah blah..." is much more natural.

And I believe that the blah-blah part is something about comparison.

The fact that you need such a part in order to make it sound natural and that a clause such as 'that A is better than B, in relation to the target' itself sounds fine means that semantically 'in relation to...' are connected to 'A is better than B' more strongly than 'one could say', I think. Don't you think so?

Taka

Clauses

Mr Wordy

#545602 Wed, 23 Jul 08 08:42 PM

Taka
The fact that you need such a part in order to make it sound natural and that a clause such as 'that A is better than B, in relation to the target' itself sounds fine means that semantically 'in relation to...' are connected to 'A is better than B' more strongly than 'one could say', I think. Don't you think so?

Before I attempt to answer this (and possibly go off at a tangent!), let me make sure I understand what you are saying. I think that you're basically arguing that the reason "In relation to the target, he said it" sounds poor is because in this construction we naturally want to associate "In relation to the target" with "it", but can't do so because "it" is not a contentful phrase into which we can actually insert "the target" (in some syntactically appropriate way).

By extension, you are then arguing that the same tendency must apply to "In relation to the target, one could say blah blah...". In other words, we prefer to associate "In relation to the target" with "blah blah" rather than with "one could say".

Is that correct?

Mr Wordy

Clauses, Constructions

Taka

#545727 Thu, 24 Jul 08 04:45 AM

That is correct, Mr. Wordy.

Taka

Mr Wordy

#545858 Thu, 24 Jul 08 12:56 PM

Hi Taka,

There are other cases where "he said" is not followed by a phrase into which "target" can be directly inserted to form a reported-speech version of the actual words that might have been spoken, but which nevertheless sound a lot better (to me) than the example with "it". For example,

In relation to the target, he said the following three things.

In relation to the target, he said nothing.

I therefore suspect that "In relation to the target, he said it" is poor not for the reasons you suggest but simply because "it" is a weak and anticlimactic way to end the sentence here.

Mr Wordy

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