Search results for 'tag:Clauses tag:Relative pronouns' matching tags 'Clauses' and 'Relative pronouns'

Re: Two relative pronouns in the sentence

CalifJim — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 15:57:49 GMT

Surely you can invent one of your own choosing! Make a sentence like the one the original poster submitted, extending it with another relative clause. He's already got who and that. Add which somewhere. Maybe you can even get a whom or a where in your sentence, too!

Re: Is it wrong?

Philip — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 15:40:26 GMT

I think that because of the length of the sentence, 'which' or 'that' is called for.

This might be a case, however, of "too much sentence". It might be better to stop after "crackdown on crime" and begin a new sentence such as "this action is aimed at.....". The antecedent of 'that/which' actually is the entire beginning clause; with the longer sentence, "crime" appears to be the antecedent because of its proximity to the relative pronoun.

Re: Please check these for me. thanks.

Avangi — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 07:18:27 GMT

Only the first choice is grammatical. This is a complex sentence (I hope). Write a story is a clause which may stand alone. You are then adding a phrase (or clause) to modify "story."

"Beginning with "I hate you." is a perfectly legal participial phrase (I hope).

"Begins with "I hate you." is a perfectly illegal relative clause. (it needs a relative pronoun, like "which.") That is, the clause lacks a subject.

Re: preposition+obj pronoun+?

Avangi — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 04:44:13 GMT

Anewcomer
Avangi: Hey, i know that "a boy" shouldn't use "do" but in this context "a boy" is not a subject and shouldn't use does, however if does is used in the context (context I'm talking about) " I team up with a boy does 5 subjects" it doesn't make sense at all, unless "who" is included before "does", which I already thought to be true (relative pronoun/clause) and so does the "participle phrase" (doing), which i already know that it's widely used.

Hi Anc - I wasn't suggesting you use does instead of do in your "third type of construction." I thought if I understood why you wanted to use "do" it might give me a clue as to what you have in mind. If you could only give us an example using "do" which you're fairly sure is correct, we might then be able to apply it to the case in hand. - A.

Re: preposition+obj pronoun+?

Anewcomer — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 03:45:19 GMT

Â Clive : I mean the preposition "with" -> pronoun/noun (a boy) --> participle/relative pronoun. And also others preposition like, of, from, for,after and all this kind of preposition to introduce a subordinate clause . Â I was wondering whether a bare infinitive could be used after the pronoun/noun (a boy), (which i thought to be unlikely, since bare infinitive can't modify pronoun)

Avangi: Hey, i know that "a boy" shouldn't use "do" but in this context "a boy" is not a subject and shouldn't use does, however if does is used in the context (context I'm talking about) " I team up with a boy does 5 subjects" it doesn't make sense at all, Â unless "who" is included before "does", which I already thought to be true (relative pronoun/clause) and so does the "participle phrase" (doing), which i already know that it's widely used.

Re: Does this sentence sound right?

Cool Breeze — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 12:50:51 GMT

I find your sentence very satisfactory. It may be Jane Austenish but there is no law against such language even today. Why should everybody speak and write in exactly the same way in English? People don't do that in many other languages. I see no mistakes in punctuation or hyphens but I know one native forum member who would consider the sentence incorrect because it contains a relative clause from which the relative pronoun has been omitted even though it is the subject of the clause: Their disdain rarely failed to evoke in him a delayed sense of self-irony [which/that was] not at all fatal in nature.

Re: Is it a subject relative?

miriam — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 05:02:36 GMT

Hello.

Relative clauses can only be (from a syntactic point of view) either post-modifiers of nouns/pronouns, or sentence modifiers. They are never objects; they don't modify verbs.

What can be subjects or objects, WITHIN the relative clauses themselves, are the relative pronouns used (who, that, which, etc.).

You provided the following examples: "The girl laughed at the boy who is bigger than her" and "The boy hit the girl who slept".

Both sentences could use some changes, but I will concentrate on what you're asking only.

In the first sentence, "who is bigger than her" is a restrictive relative clause acting as post-modifier of the noun "boy". The relative pronoun "who" is the subject of the relative clause.

Your second sentence is another example of the relative pronoun as subject of the relative clause. The clause is "who slept", with "who" as its subject.

Here are a couple of examples of relative clauses in which the relative pronoun acts as object:

1. "Where is the flower-pot (that I gave you last month)?" [that = direct object] (the subject of the clause is "I")

2. "The books (that are on the table) are Paul's." [that = subject (the books)]

3. "You don't know the man (to whom my sister sold her car)." [to whom = indirect object] (the subject of the clause is "my sister")

There are also cases in which the relative pronoun is preceded by a preposition but you're not in the presence of an indirect object. In such cases, what you'll have is an adjunct (or adverbial), as in the following sentence:

4. "Chemistry is a subject which I've always had problems with." [here, "with which" is neither subject nor object, but an adjunct/adverbial]

You can remove "which" (though not the preposition) from sentence #4, and the sentence will still make sense: "Chemistry is a subject I've always had problems with".

One good way of telling whether the relative pronoun is acting as object (direct or indirect) or subject in the relative clause is trying to remove the pronoun in question from the clause. If you do, and the sentence still makes sense, that will most probably mean that the relative pronoun is the object of the clause (watch out for adjuncts, though). If you can't remove the pronoun, that will mean it's the subject (of the relative clause). Have a look at my examples and give this a try. You won't have a correct sentence in #2 if you remove the relative proboun, but you can certainly remove it in the other three examples. You'll have to make a minor change in sentence #3, though.

See if you can do it and what you come up with.

I hope this helps.

Miriam.

Re: relative pronoun VS participle

Cool Breeze — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 21:41:30 GMT

Hi Newcomer

Your question is far too broad to be answered here. Books have been written about participles used as clause equivalents.

Re: truncation possibly this but not that

Avangi — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 02:38:41 GMT

Hi Anon, I was intrigued by this issue, as I too could see no substantial difference between the examples.

I think it comes down to a simple misunderstanding. The Anon said, "The dilemma how to know what and how much to truncate, Mr.M."

When we say,"There is Superman, up in the air," there may be two stages of truncation:

"There is Superman, (1)~~who is~~ (2)~~flying / hovering~~ up in the air."

You added, "There is Superman, flying up in the air.

Mr. M. said, "Those are OK too-- but they're not necessarily truncated. If they were they could be: There is superman, hovering up in the air."

What is meant by "they're" and "they"?

Mr. M. goes on to compare Anon's original up in the air to I have a hole in my pocket, saying they're just phrases (no evidence they were once clauses and have been truncated.)

When you truncate "who is" (relative pronoun and linking verb) it's fairly obvious what you've truncated. It sounds to me like Mr. M. is saying that if flying had been truncated you would have no way of knowing the word had been "flying," and it could just as well have been "hovering."

I believe you're taking Mr. M.'s words to mean that Anon's "flying" addition is not a correct example of a word that might have been truncated, while "hovering" is.

So to answer your question, there is no grammatical difference between "flying" and "hovering."

Regards, - A.

Re: has/have?

CalifJim — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 01:11:03 GMT

You are mistaken. Bangkok is ... has the subject and verb of the main clause. cities is the antecedent of the relative pronoun that. The verb within the relative clause must agree in number with the antecedent cities, not with the subject of the main clause (Bangkok) nor with its subject complement one.

Multiple cities are having problems, so it's cities ... have.

Compare: John is one of the many people who make this mistake. (Not makes.)