tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Nov 08 01:19:11 1997

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RE: indirect questions and relative clauses



[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



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