14 – 18.01.2012

Relative clauses

The man who lives next door

Fused relatives (nominal relatives) – no head noun

What I bought was a sweater

what I bought = the thing which I bought

Sentential relatives – relative clauses which do not modify the noun but the whole clause

Jim was late which was very annoying

which was very annoying relates to the whole clause that comes before it

Cleft sentences

It was Jim who kissed Mary

Relative clauses

• restrictive (defining)

  • that gives us essential information about a noun, it cannot be committed without changing the meaning of the sentence

• non-restrictive (non-defining)

  • give additional information, not necessary to understand the meaning of the sentence. If we remove it, the meaning is still clear

snakes which are poisonous should be avoided ← (avoid those which are poisonous, not all snakes)

Rattle snakes, which are poisonous, should be avoided ← non-restrictive (all rattle snakes are poisonous)

John who sits next to Mary is my best student ← __ and the meaning is still the same

The man who sits next to Mary is my best student ← __ we wouldn't know who is this man

Relative clauses

• finite

  • they have finite verb (when it's in a given tense)

• non-finite

  • (when it's not in any tense)

The man who married Sue is rich

^ past tense → verb is finite → relative clause is finite

The student [sitting next to Jane] is bored

^participle

Participles does not indicate tense (are non-finite)

[] relative clause

The man arrested in Oslo yesterday is charged with many crimes

^-ed participle – non-finite, -ed participles are not inflected for tense

The thing [to do] is go for me

to do – relative clause which contains infinitive

Finite relative clause is/may be introduced by a relative pronoun (who)

When the clause is non-finite you cannot use a relative pronoun

Finite relative clauses – introduced by a pronoun which is called a relative pronoun

Relative pronoun

• can distinguish gender

  • + personal

    • who

  • - personal

    • which

some nouns can be double gender

collective nouns who/which

• can distinguish

  • case

    
    1. relative pronoun in nominative case (who, which) can function as

  • subject

    The man [who lives next door] has an ape ← who = subject

Relative clause is the compound of 2 sentences

[The man]₁ has an ape, [He]₁ lives next door.

^

Who

He – NP

He → who (it takes over all the syntactic information that he had [masculine, the subject]

If relative pronoun replaces the subject it will function as the subject.

If the relative pronoun is immediately followed by verb it functions as the subject.

2. Relative pronoun in accusative case (to signal object)

The man [who(m) you see] is my father.

The man is my father. You see him.

who(m)

Relative pronoun functions as the object

If after who(m)/which, you have a NP it means it functions as the object.

Relative pronoun in acc case which functions as the prepositional object/complement

The man [whom you are waiting for] is very late

The man is very late. You are waiting [for him].

Whom

Whom....sentence....for – what moves is just whom = prepostion stranded

preposition comes before pronon Pied-piping ← formal