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davkett

#116849 Sat, 09 Jul 05 09:24 PM

(what#2)He asked me what I wanted.=>He asked me, 'What do you want?"

Your equation in What #2 is an interrogative:

1 a (1) -- used as an interrogative expressing inquiry about the identity, nature, or value of an object or matter <what is this> <what is wealth without friends> <what does he earn> <what hath God wrought> -From Merriam-Webster

What #2, as you rewrote it is not the meaning of the 'whats' in the quoted text. They are not interrogatives.

Is this the explanation you are looking for?

(He asked me to tell him that which I wanted.)

davkett

Joined on Tue, Jun 7 2005

Pennsylvania, USA

Senior Member (2,788)

"The rose stays fresh in its name..." -Bernard of Morlay

MrPedantic

#116866 Sun, 10 Jul 05 12:08 AM

Taka wrote:
(what #1) What you need to do frist is (to) call him.=>The thing which you need to do first is (to) call him.

(what#2)He asked me what I wanted.=>He asked me, 'What do you want?"

Now, which 'what' are these below?
Children begin to learn the norm before their linguistic skills are far enough developed to understand a verbal description of what they are learning. This kind of learning has sometimes been called 'imitation', but that is too much simple an explanation for the complex processes that go on when children learn what is normal and expected in their own community.

I may have misunderstood the question: I took it to mean, when a 'what' approaches, how do you know which kind of 'what' it is?

That may not have been what was meant; but I'll see if I can answer it anyway.

It seems to me that there are at least 5 forms of 'what'. One is adjectival, and so doesn't affect the discussion:

1. Take what(ever) money you need.

Another is the interrogative 'what':

2. What do you need?

That leaves 3 potential trouble-makers, where 'what' seems to fuse two pronouns. I'll underline the 'object' part of 'what' in each case:

3. He asked me what had happened. (what = object-subject: 'he asked me the thing that had happened')

4. He asked me what I knew. (what = object-object: 'he asked me the thing that I knew')

5. What he needs to do first is to call me. (what = subject-object: 'the thing that he needs to do first is to call me')

I take #5 as Taka's #1, and #4 as Taka's #2.

The question then is, how do we know what's what?

Is it simply because when 'what' fronts the sentence, and is non-interrogative, the clause of which it is the object follows immediately; so that we know it is also to be the subject of a clause, a little later? Whereas in #3 and #4, we already know, on reaching 'what', that it is partly the object of the preceding clause?

Or are there examples of fronted 'what' where the object-object or object-subject pattern occurs?

MrP

MrPedantic

Joined on Tue, Oct 12 2004

Veteran Member (12,047)

...opella forensis / adducit febris...

Clauses, Nouns, Pronouns, Underline

davkett

#116874 Sun, 10 Jul 05 01:09 AM

But Mr. P,

Your #4 and #5 'whats' can both be replaced with 'that which': 'He asked me that which I knew," and "That which he needs to do first is to call me." It's Taka's rewritten equation of the original #2 ("He asked me, 'What do you want?') that cannot be replaced with 'that which'. It's the use of 'what' in Taka's rewrite of #2 that cannot be imposed on the quoted text.

Are we all on the same page yet?

davkett

Taka

#116893 Sun, 10 Jul 05 05:32 AM

OK, let me rewrite my original question to make things clear.

1:I wonder what you are doing and who you are becoming. ('what'=interrogative, impossible to replace it with 'that which' or 'the thing(s) which').

2: I like what you've done here. ('what'=non-interrogative, a compound of 'noun+relative pronoun', possible to replace it with 'that which' or 'the thing(s) which').

Now. Consider this example:

What you do determines the result.

At first glance, this 'what' may seem 'non-interrogative': it can be replaced with 'that which' or 'the things which'. But if the sentence was:

What and how you do deremine the result.

you would take it as interrogative. Same with, say, 'I don't know what you talking about.' At first, you may interpret this 'what' as a compound of 'noun+relative pronoun'. But if the 'what' appeared in 'I don't know who you are and what you talking about', you would rather take it as interrogative.

So, I think there is an ambiguous case where a 'what' can be either interrogative kind or non-interrogative kind.

To me, the original sentences that I asked are really ambiguous. The 'what' in 'decription of what they are learning' may be a compound of 'noun+relative pronoun', but I don't think we can say it is clearly that kind of 'what'; if it was 'description of how, where, and what they are learning', you would take it otherwise. Same with 'learn what...' It can be non-interrogative (learn the thing(s) which....) or interrogative(learn who we are and what is natural).

So, my question is, how do you native speakers differentiate such 'whats'? If you don't really differentiate them, how do you perceive them?

Taka

Joined on Tue, Sep 7 2004

Japan

Senior Member (2,264)

Nouns, Pronouns, Relative pronouns

MrPedantic

#116908 Sun, 10 Jul 05 08:42 AM

Davkett wrote:

But Mr. P,

Your #4 and #5 'whats' can both be replaced with 'that which': 'He asked me that which I knew," and "That which he needs to do first is to call me." It's Taka's rewritten equation of the original #2 ("He asked me, 'What do you want?') that cannot be replaced with 'that which'. It's the use of 'what' in Taka's rewrite of #2 that cannot be imposed on the quoted text.

Are we all on the same page yet?

Hello Davkett

Yes, sorry, it was a little unclear.

I was thinking of it like this. In #4, 'what' forms part of the object (underlined):

4. He asked me what I knew.

But if we think of 'what' as a double pronoun ('that-which'), we can also think of 'that' as the object of 'asked', and 'which' as the object of 'knew':

4a. He asked me that-which I knew.

So 'that-which' = 'object-object'.

In #5, on the other hand, 'what' forms part of the subject (in bold):

5. What he needs to do first is to call me.

Again, if we think of 'what' as a double pronoun ('that-which'), we can also think of 'that' as the subject (in bold) of 'is', and 'which' as the object (underlined) of 'do':

5a. That which he needs to do first is to call me.

So 'that-which' = 'subject-object'.

But this doesn't answer Taka's question anyway!

MrP

MrPedantic

Nouns, Pronouns

MrPedantic

#116917 Sun, 10 Jul 05 09:05 AM

Hello Taka

1:I wonder what you are doing and who you are becoming. ('what'=interrogative, impossible to replace it with 'that which' or 'the thing(s) which').

2: I like what you've done here. ('what'=non-interrogative, a compound of 'noun+relative pronoun', possible to replace it with 'that which' or 'the thing(s) which').

I see the first 'what' as retaining its questioning nature; it is in effect '?what':

1a. ?What are you doing? => I wondered ?what he was doing.

This I think of as 'which thing'.

I see the second what as non-questioning; it is a simple uncharged 'what', and can be replaced with 'that which'.

But as you say, in some sentences, it could be either '?what' or 'what':

3.(?)What you do determines the result.

Here, you could transpose it into either:

3a.That which you do determines the result.

3b.Which thing you do determines the result.

In other words, depending on the context, the interrogative aspect of the 'what' may still be 'live'.

I'm inclined to wonder whether all such ambiguous cases are ambiguous because the 'what' has a subject element ('what' is both the subject of 'determines' and the object of 'do'), and it's that that differentiates them.

To disprove this, I need to find a contrary example. Will look for one now.

MrP

MrPedantic

Nouns, Pronouns, Relative pronouns

Anonymous

#116956 Sun, 10 Jul 05 11:33 AM

Hello guys

I'm a non-native anonymous poster. But I'd like to throw my two cents.

Children begin to learn the norm before their linguistic skills are far enough developed to understand a verbal description of what they are learning. This kind of learning has sometimes been called 'imitation', but that is too much simple an explanation for the complex processes that go on when children learn what is normal and expected in their own community.

As for the first what-clause, I would say it is definitely a free relative clause [i.e. what=that which], because it is the object of the preposition "of", which always requires a noun or noun phrase/clause. As for the what second what-clause, the judgment will depend on how one draws the line between an embedded interrogative clause and a free relative clause. Oxford English Dictionary says about this as follows;

The interrogative force varies according to the nature of the principal clause; after verbs or phrases of asking, wondering, or the like, the dependent clause is more or less explicitly an indirect question (e.g. "I asked him what he meant" = "I asked him 'What do you mean?'"); after verbs or phrases of knowing, saying, or the like, it is only implicitly so, but the sense is essentially the same, and is to be distinguished from the compound relative (= that which), which however it sometimes closely approaches, the construction being often identical; cf. "I did not know what he meant" (which implies the mental question "What did he mean?") with "I did not hear what he said" (where 'what' simply = 'that which'). [note :"learn" belongs to verbs of knowing]

anonymous

Anonymous

Clauses, Constructions, Direct questions, Indirect questions, Noun phrases, Nouns, Prepositions, Verbs

davkett

#117026 Sun, 10 Jul 05 04:18 PM

Perhaps, as a native speaker, I've learned to think of 'what' as an interrogative only in its overt form of a phrase/sentence with a question mark at the end. Even in Mr. P's example:

"I wonder what you are doing and who you are becoming."

To me that translates easily into 'I wonder about that which you are doing...' more than into, 'What are you doing and who are you becoming?'

For me, neither of the two 'what'-clauses in the original quotation implies an interrogative, the word 'learning' as a 'knowing verb' aside.

davkett

Clauses, Question marks, Verbs

Taka

#117606 Tue, 12 Jul 05 03:20 PM

davkett,

I know the typical answer for this 'what' problem, which was presented by Mr. anonymous, but that doesn't click in my heart. So I asked the question here. And your answer is much more intriguing.

So, do you think that, to native speakers, there is essentially no difference between 'whats' except when it is used as an interrogate?

Taka

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