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: Help with structure

CalifJim — Sun, 21 Nov 2004 04:51:21 GMT

He swallowed a lot of new questions which had just occured to him, and looked instead at the thousands of narrow boxes piled neatly right to the ceiling.

He | swallowed ... and looked (instead)
subject | verbs joined by a conjunction (adverb)

swallowed | a lot of new questions
verb | complement of the verb, i.e., direct object - also antecedent to "which"

questions: which (the questions) | had occurred | to him
relative pronoun | verb phrase | prepositional phrase - indirect object pronoun "him"
relative clause functioning as an adjective to "questions"

looked | at the thousands of narrow boxes OR looked at | the thousands of narrow boxes
verb | prepositional phrases OR verb | complement, i.e., direct object

boxes | [which were] piled neatly right to the ceiling
direct object | modifying past participle phrase equivalent to a relative clause with "which were" deleted

piled | neatly | right | to the ceiling

past (passive) participle | adverb of manner | adverb of degree modifying the following | prepositional phrase

Well, it's a start, anyway!

Search results for 'tag:Indirect objects tag:Relative pronouns' matching tags 'Indirect objects' and 'Relative pronouns'

Re: Is it a subject relative?

Re: Help with structure