tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Oct 14 16:46:12 1998
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Re: relative clause attempt
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: relative clause attempt
- Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 19:45:46 -0400 (Eastern Daylight Time)
- In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>
- Priority: NORMAL
Just to make this a little more accurate and include a more
common case:
On Wed, 14 Oct 1998 14:44:56 -0700 (PDT) charghwI' wrote:
> 2. There are two different kinds of relative clauses in
> English...
> When the relative pronoun is neuter, we use two different
> pronouns to indicate which one:
>
> A: There are several glasses on the table. Only one is blue. It
> contains a message. "The glass that is blue contains a message."
The whole reason I tell you the glass is blue is to tell you
which glass has the message.
> B: There are several glasses. A couple of them are blue. "The
> glass, which is blue, contains a message."
The B: example would also be the case if there were only one
glass and it happened to be blue. I point to a table and it has
one glass on it and that glass is blue. "The glass, which is
blue, contains a message." Telling you that the glass is blue
tells you something additional about the glass, besides that it
contains a message, but it does not identify the glass. Knowing
that it is blue doesn't pick it out of a field of non-blue
glasses.
charghwI' 'utlh