Talk:English relative clauses

message: How would you analyse this line: "And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by"?  I remember a school teacher of mine parodying Dryden's relative clause rule by saying that if we were to follow that, Masefield would have to have written "And all I ask is a tall ship and a star by which to steer her."  But while his parody obviously involves a relative clause, I'm puzzled about what exactly the original is.  IS it a zero relative?  --Doric Loon 08:33, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, not a relative clause, just a normal infinitival clause. As I'm sure you've noticed, infinitival clauses can follow their implicit subjects ("someone to watch over me") or their implicit objects ("something to do"); Masefield's example is the latter case. I happen to think "a star by which to steer her" sounds fine, but Fowler points out that since *"someone who to watch over me" and *"something which to do" are ungrammatical, it doesn't make sense to insist upon the analogous "a star by which to steer her". ("[…] Fowler considers 'a good land to live in' grammatically superior to 'a good land in which to live', since one cannot say *'a good land which to inhabit'.") —RuakhTALK 20:10, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

text: P-stranding can also occur due to the fronting of a question word ("What is he talking about?"), or due to a passive-voice transformation ("That hasn't been talked about.") That said, saying it shouldn't end a sentence is neither broader or narrower; it forbids "That's something to think about", but permits "That's something we need to talk about, sir." :-P —RuakhTALK 19:01, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Masefield quote

message: My attempts to remove the unreferenced POV from the "Which and That" section keep being reverted.  The edits should stand for the following reasons:
:"This latter rule is a relatively recent invention" -- Both "relative" and "recent" are POV.  Relative to what?  Recent compared to what?  All the reader needs to know is when and by whom the rule was recommended; let the reader decide for themselves if this makes it "relatively recent."
:"as is still the case today."  All this really says is that the editor who wrote this sentence agrees with Fowler's 1926 statement and thinks it is still true--hardly NPOV, and totally irrelevant to the article.
--Margareta 01:03, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure it's so POV as it is obvious and well known; but I think the current text (after your last edits) is acceptable. —RuakhTALK 02:21, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree it would be correct to say that the convention is frequently disregarded--and in fact it would be easy to give a reference for such a statement (e.g., see the most recent Strunk & White). What was POV about the earlier wording was its assertion that neither most nor the best writers use the convention, as Fowler stated in 1926.  I don't agree that this latter is "obvious and well known" today.--Margareta 01:36, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Change of plan - decided not to add my comment about British English without a reference. Gailtb 11:46, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There is actually already a comment in the section about the distinction between British and American English.  And I liked your edits over in Restrictiveness.--Margareta 01:36, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

text: That reviewer makes some good points, but he is wrong to credit White with this rule.  The rule was clearly stated in Fowler's The King's English, published in 1906.  I believe that Fowler himself invented the rule, although he presents it as his attempt to revive an ancient rule that had fallen into disuse.  Certainly this rule did not exist in the 19th century; whether it actually existed before that is something that a better historian than I will need to verify. — Lawrence King (talk) 02:39, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV Pushing: Which and That 

message: "If the machine reads what look like two answers." 
or
"If the machine reads what looks like two answers."
Which is right and why? I think the first one is right because the antecedent to the word "what" is "answers" which is plural.  My content editor says otherwise.  Anyone know where I can find a legitimate source to prove one or the other right. Arthurian Legend (talk) 14:27, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Number 

message: This article was cited by one reader who commented in a discussion on the New York Times website.  I commented in response that the Wikipedia article didn't really answer the question.
The "After Deadline" blog on the Times website "examines questions of grammar, usage and style...."  In the January 6, 2009 entry, "Language and Disabilities", the third segment, under the heading of "The Case of the Puzzling Case", considered this sentence:
Whomever Gov. David A. Paterson appoints to succeed Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton most likely gets to keep the seat without having to seek election until 2010, instead of having to run next year.
At issue was whether the first word should be "Whomever" or "Whoever".
Some readers thought that the pronoun was the subject of the sentence and so should be the nominative "Whoever".  In Comment #42, reader Liz responded that the subject was the entire clause, a nominal relative clause, and she linked to our article to support her view.  She concluded that "Whomever" was correct.
I've read the article and I don't think it addresses the point.  The question of what case to use for pronouns in clauses of this type seems to be reasonably related to the overall subject of the article, so if the grammar mavens who edit here want to tackle the dispute, go ahead.  For what it's worth, the comments on the Times blog were divided. JamesMLane t c 22:49, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Whoever" and "whomever" 

message: I would like to remove this line:
:Linguists have objected to others' prescription of such invented rules. 
The line implies that it is a general consensus among linguists that the rule is invented and therefore bad.  However, the source isn't an article discussing linguists' expert opinions on this matter; it's an essay about writing.  It claims, in passing, that "most linguists" think the rule is "silly," and criticizes one specific person who "never met a rule [he] didn't like." This particular post is written by one person.  Right now the page won't load, but the writer does seem to be an academic of some kind.
For now, I've changed the phrasing to reduce the NPoV, but I'd like to remove the line entirely. Darkfrog24 (talk) 01:16, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Looked it up elsewhere.  Dr. Zwicky is a professor of linguistics.  Language Log is a blog (see WP:BLOGS) ...but one written by professionals ...but not written in a professional style ...but does it need to be? ...but he only mentions the material used in the article in passing.  Thoughts?  Since the article does not specifically describe the rule as "others' proscription of invented rules," does this constitute OR?  Something's not right here but I'm not sure what. Darkfrog24 (talk) 01:33, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, that should do for now.  I changed the phrasing, took out the weasel words, and mentioned Dr. Zwicky specifically. Darkfrog24 (talk) 01:36, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Misleading line

message: The text says that Dryden said preposition stranding is bad grammar. This needs a citation. I don't know about Dryden, but the reason I am wary is that the same claim is often made about Robert Lowth, and when you look into it you find Lowth only ever said that preposition stranding sounds more informal and chatty than the formal-sounding alternative - something nobody would seriously doubt. Lowth then went on to use preposition stranding himself in his next sentence. In other words, all he did was draw attention to differences in register. He formulated no prescriptive rule. He was later villified for this rule, though, and for comments he never made about split infinitives, etc. etc. These early writers, who were the first to reflect on the nature of English and did the groundwork which we take for granted, did sometimes get it wrong, but we should be very wary of implying that they are reactionary fools, especially if we haven't taken the trouble to read their books. If Dryden did say this, we need a citation, and my bet is that when the cite is found, we will find it is much more nuanced than this article implies. --Doric Loon (talk) 10:36, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Say it, sing it, stitch it on a pillow. Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:30, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dryden 

message: This article is not about the uses to which relative clauses are put; it's about grammatical usage pertaining to relative clauses. They seem to be different things.
Bathrobe (talk) 09:04, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Use" of relative clauses? 

message: Will someone please tell me where in this article is a definition of the English Relative Clause?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.83.88.21 (talk) 21:57, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Definition 

message: Hello Boson and thank you; I agree that deleting material here is an improvement, not only for clarity of the new facts, but for the better readability of the text. But there is loss of valuable history here---the references to the (uncoordinated) efforts of Goold Brown and the reverend Professor Fowler as presented to the reader---if it is not restored elsewhere. Granted the material is parenthetical here but… but IMO it in certainly worth keeping on the page somewhere. (I’m caught up is another page right now, but would hope to revisit this item with you later/soon.) Best regards--Jbeans (talk) 12:25, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry about that! My deletion was accidental. I reworded the text before and after that passage and somehow it got lost in the process. I have restored it where it was for the time being. --Boson (talk) 14:18, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deleting Goold Brown and Professor Fowler history 

message: : She is a woman on whom to rely; He is the man whom to beat.
So, does it imply that while women are good to rely, men are only good to be beaten?
:: No IdreamofJeanie (talk) 11:21, 12 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sexist example! 

message: :Jack is the boy with who Jenny fell in love (colloquial; or not okay);
"Colloquial"?  Seriously?  Are there people who actually say this? Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 03:13, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  "with who"? 

message: The Cambridge Grammar of the english Language, page 224, reads
 Complements are most often NPs, and conversely NPs are usually complements. Some NPs can occur with adjunct function, but they tend to belong to very restricted semantic types, mainly time or manner.
 A distinctive property of such NPs is that they cannot be replaced by personal pronouns: They saw her then/*it, You should hold them so/*it.
 Similarly there are no corresponding relatives with which: the way that/∗which you should hold them.
Yet, I do not understand the reason why the way which you should hold them is wrong, that is what relation "similarly" marks in the paragraph. --Backinstadiums (talk) 11:47, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  The way which you should hold them