tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Nov 08 01:19:11 1997
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
RE: indirect questions and relative clauses
- From: "David Trimboli" <[email protected]>
- Subject: RE: indirect questions and relative clauses
- Date: Sat, 8 Nov 97 09:19:21 UT
[email protected] on behalf of David Crowell wrote:
> > Question: What does the bartender not know?
> Answer: Who took the money. (note the period, it is not a question, but
> the answer to a question)
"who" = "the identity of the person who"
Relative clause inside a preposition
The bartender does not know <something>.
<something> = "the identity of the person who took the money"
<something> = "the identity" The rest is just a preposition, additional
information.
The bartender does not know the identity.
<something> is NOT a question. It MUST be a noun phrase of some sort.
> Question: Whom does the bartender know?
> Answer: The one who took the money
This one is already easy to identify as a relative pronoun.
The bartender knows whom? = Whom does the bartender know?
The bartender knows <somebody>.
<somebody> = "the person who took the money"
<somebody> = "the person" The rest is a relative clause, additional
information.
The bartender knows the person.
<somebody> is NOT a question. It must be a noun phrase of some sort.
> > It has the same form a question, with one slight difference, the verb
> doesn't need to be the second element of the phrase followed by the
> subject if the question word is not part of the subject).
What?
> Question: What (question-word) did (verb) he (subject) take?
"What did he take?"
"What" is an interrogative pronoun (question word), and is also the object of
the sentence.
"Did" is a "helper word." My dictionary says <<(23) (used without special
meaning in interrogative, negative, and inverted constructions; in imperatives
with "you" or "though" expressed, and occasionally as a metrical expedient in
verse): "do you think so? I don't agree.">> In other words, don't worry
about "do." It just allows you to reverse the order of words for questions.
"he" subject
"take" verb
> Not-a-question: What (question-word) he (subject) took (verb).
WRONG. "what" is here a compound relative pronoun, which I explained in my
recent long post:
(2) rel. pron. (a) (as a compound relative) that which: "this is what he
says," "I will send what was promised."
In this sentence fragment, "what" is absolutely NOT an interrogative pronoun.
It is a compound relative pronoun.
he (subject)
took (verb)
> Question: Who (subject) took (verb) the money?
Correct.
> Not-a-question: Who (subject,question-word) took (verb).
WRONG AGAIN. As in "I saw who took the money," "who" is a compound relative
pronoun, just like "what" above. It really, truly is not an interrogative
pronoun. Really.
SuStel
Stardate 97854.6