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

Is this an appositive or adverbial phrase?

Omnidemon — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 14:28:13 GMT

Nora, of all the candidates who are running, is the best.

Is "of all the candidates who are running" an appositive or some sort of strange relative/adjective clause.

I think that it is not an adjective clause, because a relative pronoun is not found at the beginning of the phrase.

Any help will be appreciated!

Re: About the usage of which and that

Yankee — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 14:00:51 GMT

Hi Pucca

Yes, you can omit the relative pronoun in a restrictive clause when the relative pronoun is not the subject of the restrictive clause.

"The yogurt (that) I bought yesterday was already past its use-by date."

Re: "She is the only woman in the candidates that/who can speak Japanese."

CalifJim — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 02:07:47 GMT

The choice between that and who does not change the meaning.
In either case there is ambiguity between whether the relative pronoun (that or who) refers back to woman or candidates. My first impulse is to take it as woman.

In practical terms, however, it doesn't make any difference. The same woman is identified as the only one whether she is the only female who speaks Japanese or the only Japanese speaker who is female.

Graphically, it doesn't matter whether we eliminate the non-Japanese speakers first (X row) and then the males, or whether we eliminate the males first (M column) and then the non-Japanese speakers, we still end up in the square which represents female Japanese speakers, and there is only one of those.

               M            F

J                    |     1
             ____________
X
                       |

CJ

Re: who vs whom

Likeguslee — Sun, 16 Jul 2006 09:56:15 GMT

There is also an excellent discussion on the usage of Who and Whom provided by American Heritage Dictionary:

Usage Note: The traditional rules that determine the use of who and whom are relatively simple: who is used for a grammatical subject, where a nominative pronoun such as I or he would be appropriate, and whom is used elsewhere. Thus, we write The actor who played Hamlet was there, since who stands for the subject of played Hamlet; and Who do you think is the best candidate? where who stands for the subject of is the best candidate. But we write To whom did you give the letter? since whom is the object of the preposition to; and The man whom the papers criticized did not show up, since whom is the object of the verb criticized. Â· Considerable effort and attention are required to apply the rules correctly in complicated sentences. To produce correctly a sentence such as I met the man whom the government had tried to get France to extradite, we must anticipate when we write whom that it will function as the object of the verb extradite, several clauses distant from it. It is thus not surprising that writers from Shakespeare onward should often have interchanged who and whom. And though the distinction shows no signs of disappearing in formal style, strict adherence to the rules in informal discourse might be taken as evidence that the speaker or writer is paying undue attention to the form of what is said, possibly at the expense of its substance. In speech and informal writing who tends to predominate over whom; a sentence such as Who did John say he was going to support? will be regarded as quite natural, if strictly incorrect. By contrast, the use of whom where who would be required, as in Whom shall I say is calling? may be thought to betray a certain linguistic insecurity. Â· When the relative pronoun stands for the object of a preposition that ends a sentence, whom is technically the correct form: the strict grammarian will insist on Whom (not who) did you give it to? But grammarians since Noah Webster have argued that the excessive formality of whom in these cases is at odds with the relative informality associated with the practice of placing the preposition in final position and that the use of who in these cases should be regarded as entirely acceptable. Â· The relative pronoun who may be used in restrictive relative clauses, in which case it is not preceded by a comma, or in nonrestrictive clauses, in which case a comma is required. Thus, we may say either The scientist who discovers a cure for cancer will be immortalized, where the clause who discovers a cure for cancer indicates which scientist will be immortalized, or The mathematician over there, who solved the four-color theorem, is widely known, where the clause who solved the four-color theorem adds information about a person already identified by the phrase the mathematician over there. Â· Some grammarians have argued that only who and not that should be used to introduce a restrictive relative clause that identifies a person. This restriction has no basis either in logic or in the usage of the best writers; it is entirely acceptable to write either the man that wanted to talk to you or the man who wanted to talk to you. Â· The grammatical rules governing the use of who and whom apply equally to whoever and whomever.

When as relative pronoun

Klavier — Mon, 28 Feb 2005 15:59:00 GMT

Hello.
What kind of other antecedents are used with when as relative pronoun, apart from the day, the month, the year, the moment, the date, the time?

Re: Maj - First question (Other than that)

wumanfu — Wed, 24 Sep 2003 14:29:41 GMT

Hi, this is my first post to the group. Iâve just pasted information from Pocket Fowler's Modern English Usage. To be quite frank, I donât really understand these definitions fully but I hope the information is useful to you. So, regarding the words
1 Than
2 that
1 Than is normally used to introduce the second element in a comparison, and acts either as a conjunction (He is older than I am) or as a preposition (He
is older than me). In uses such as He is older than I, than is normally regarded as a conjunction with the verb following I understood, but in spoken English
at least the more usual choice is the type He is older than me.
2 that is a word with many roles, and plays a major part in English sentence structure. The following are its main grammatical functions:

DEMONSTRATIVE PRONOUN: That was what I meant

DEMONSTRATIVE ADJECTIVE: Why did you take that picture of me?

DEMONSTRATIVE ADVERB: I was that angry / It didn't hurt that much

RELATIVE PRONOUN: It was not the drug that had done it

CONJUNCTION: He had assumed that we would want to see him (1) As a demonstrative pronoun and adjective, that normally refers to something already mentioned
or known: (pronoun) She had not meant it so, but it could have been read like that / How the hell did you manage that? / The witnesses, if they could be
called that, continued to repeat that they knew nothing / (adjective) If I were you, I would keep an eye on that young man / It wasn't a nature reserve,
that Ark of yours. There are also a number of familiar idiomatic or formulaic uses: Something worth a lot of money, that's for sure / She had a small,
pretty face, I'll give you that / She cleared her throat to speak but left it at that / I just wanted to see her, that's all. (2) Its use as a demonstrative
adverb equivalent to so or very (or so very) dates from the 15c and has been slipping in and out of standard usage ever since. In current English it is
regarded as informal in both positive and negative contexts:

âShut up,â says Claudia â¦ âIt's not that funnyââDavid Lodge, 1988 / You and your brother, you're not really that alike, are you?âEncounter, 1989. In other
contexts, however, it verges on the formal or at least neutral:

The questioning attitude that comes naturally at student age is not that easily abolishedâListener, 1987. (3) As a relative pronoun, that becomes an alternative
to which (and occasionally who). Although they are often interchangeable, there are some uses that are peculiar to each: (a) When that is used it normally
introduces a so-called ârestrictiveâ clause, which defines or gives essential (rather than additional) information about the noun or noun phrase that comes
before: the pen that my father bought for me / the pen that is over on the table/ (in each case the that-clause defines which pen is meant). (See further
at
RELATIVE CLAUSES).
In these cases the that-clause normally follows on without a comma. Which can also be used in these examples, but in conversational English that is more
usual, and in some cases it is possible to omit the relative pronoun altogether and say the pen my father bought for me. That can also replace who (or
whom), especially when the reference is non-specific, as in The person that I saw was definitely a woman, and when there are two antecedents, one inanimate
and the other human: It was the drug and not her brother that had upset her. (b) That is also more idiomatic than which in a number of cases: (1) when
which already occurs earlier in the sentence in another role (Which is the house that you bought?), (2) after indefinite pronouns such as anything, everything,
nothing, and something (There is something that I forgot to mention), and (3) after a construction with the impersonal it (It is the new one that we want).
When that is the object of the verb in its clause, it is regularly omitted, especially in speech (There is something I forgot to mention). (c) Which, not
that, has to be used in so-called non-restrictive clauses which give additional rather than essential information: A new edition of the book, which has
taken ten years to write, will be published this week. Which is also used when a preposition precedes it (Is this the book to which you are referring?);
in a corresponding construction with that, the preposition has to come at the end (Is this the book that you are referring to? or Is this the book you
are referring to?). (4) That is used as a conjunction to introduce a subordinate clause, principally after verbs of saying, feeling, believing, knowing,
learning, etc.: The President admitted that he had lied / We would hate to think that they were corrupting you / I understand that you wanted to see me.
A that-clause of this type can also occur after the impersonal it: It was natural that they should think so. Normally the conjunction that can be omitted,
especially in speech: I understand you wanted to see me / It was natural they should think so. In inverted constructions, however, in which the that-clause
comes before the main clause, that is obligatory: That they are guilty is assumed by everybody.

Notes from Pocket Fowler's Modern English Usage.