ESL General English Grammar Questions

Re: Relative clause separation

paco2004 — Wed, 17 Nov 2004 17:12:54 GMT

Nona and Matthew

Your replies are very helpful. The literature said that grammarians call this kind of clause's rightward movement as extraposition. When the subject determiner is 'a', we can move the restrictive relative clause but when it is 'the' we can't. I didn't still grasp the reason but anyway what Matthew felt proves it is true. Thank you.

paco

Re: Relative clause separation

matthewg — Wed, 17 Nov 2004 11:46:28 GMT

Hi,

I find (1) acceptable, but (2) does sound odd. I'm unsure of the technicalities, but I think it has something to do with intonation and the mind expecting a pause to come after yesterday.

This is how I would rephrase (2):

The letter arrived yesterday -- It was addressed to Mary.

Re: Relative clause separation

nona the brit — Wed, 17 Nov 2004 11:42:26 GMT

It does sound odd. Perhaps there is some technical grammar reason which is beyond me.

The first sentence tells me about one letter, which could have been one of many letters that arrived, but that one was addressed to Mary.

Using 'the' in the second sentence means either of two things to me.

1)Only one letter arrived yesterday, in which case I would say,

The letter that arrived yesterday was addressed to Mary.

Possibly one or several letters arrived yesterday, but we are talking about a particular letter for Mary, in which case I would say,

The letter, which was addressed to Mary, arrived yesterday. or
The letter addressed to Mary arrived yesterday.

The first emphasises the receipt of the letter, and the second empasises that it was for Mary.

Relative clause separation

paco2004 — Wed, 17 Nov 2004 08:30:13 GMT

Hi Teachers.

(1) A letter arrived yesterday which was addressed to Mary.
(2) The letter arrived yesterday which was addressed to Mary.

I've read in a linguistic literature that native speakers accept (1) but they feel some oddness in (2).
Is it true? If it is so, why?

paco2004