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You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly. You should upgrade or use an alternative browser. Thread starter Lin-Lin Start date Jun 12, Huddleston and Pullum , and yet it is not a when- question but an alternative question will it become someone parking out front? This seems to corroborate the need for an intermediary zone in which to situate hybrid examples, as suggested by schema B. A more fundamental distinction in nature between the two types of clauses is indeed at the basis of both Quirk et al.
I shall now examine some of the arguments in favour of that division in the light of examples taken from my corpus. As the free relative clause is said to be closer to a noun phrase, it is supposed to have the same range of functions as the noun phrase Quirk et al. And yet, interrogative clauses seem no less prone to occupy all these functions themselves, as for instance the subject position:. The client does not know what to expect and it is your responsibility to ensure that he or she does not waste time trying to contact you at inappropriate times.
It is reminiscent of a syntactic test whose purpose is to discriminate between relatives and interrogatives, which is described in O. It consists in inserting within the sentence an adverb bearing on the wh- pronoun such as just, precisely or exactly: when successful, such a gloss tends to indicate that one is dealing with an interrogative Above all, the coordination with the whether- clause, which can be nothing else but interrogative, is a strong argument in favour of the interrogative interpretation.
However, what is worthy of note concerning these examples is the fact that only the former when- clause can be extra-posited:. By contrast, example 18 cannot so easily be extra-posited, hence the idea that it is closer to a noun phrase than the above example:. The interrogative vs. When comparing the grammatical functions illustrated in each category, the only one which is occupied by relatives and never by interrogatives is that of adverbial complement, which after all is not a typically nominal function.
I shall however come back to this point. The use of a preposition is expected before free relatives whenever they complement a noun phrase or an adjective which testifies to their basically nominal nature , whereas an interrogative clause should not be preceded by a preposition cf.
Huddleston and Pullum This makes a lot of sense from a syntactic point of view, and yet once more the distinction becomes blurred when looking at certain examples from the corpus:. The addition of an overt antecedent is successful: [they] neither showed any interest in the place where she had been nor The use of the preposition, on the other hand, is clearly a nominal trait, more typical as a result of the free relatives than of the interrogatives. And yet the coordinated complements of an idea are introduced by a preposition again:.
Internet The phrase get an idea of belongs to the same category as find out or again know, that is to a category of verbs whose semantics are connected with the imparting of knowledge, and as a result regularly considered as more typical of the interrogatives. From the syntactic point of view, the coordination with a how- clause, which cannot be relative 20 , is solid evidence that the following where- clause is also an interrogative.
But this only goes to prove that the difference in nature postulated between the free relatives and the interrogatives whether more or less nominal is in fact very unstable. It is clearly relative, and although it conveys distinctive information concerning the preceding noun phrase my passport picture 21 , the latter cannot be the antecedent for the when- clause, as only phrases referring explicitly to time can play that role.
The following gloss clarifies the relation at stake, and the meaning conveyed is summed up by the preposition used in the second paraphrase:. This goes once more against the dichotomy postulated by some between nominal relative clauses and purely clausal interrogatives. The possibility of a clause occurring as the complement of a noun phrase without the intermission of a preposition is deemed by Huddleston and Pullum to be a typical clausal feature , and should therefore not occur with a relative, were the division a stable one.
But their characteristics also testify to the fact that relatives can behave in a way which is more reminiscent of that of clauses than that of noun phrases:. And yet, the semantic relation between the unless- and the until- clauses respectively, and the relative clause in the two examples under consideration, is akin to that a which- clause enjoys with its clausal antecedent That link can be reconstructed as follows:.
The paraphrase of 23 highlights the link between the temporal until- clause and the relative that it contains 24 , which is in fact one of temporal identification, here rendered explicit by the use of be as a copula. First, I find it useful to maintain a differentiation between free relatives and interrogatives according to the semantic and syntactic criteria exemplified in part two, until the point when it becomes counter-productive.
Second, there is a third category of when- and where- subordinates without an overt antecedent which has to be differentiated from the other two, for they do present irreducible syntactic as well as semantic differences especially in the context of an enunciative analysis. It is neither the subject nor a complement of the verb retire which is intransitive, it provides some information on the moment when the action described in the main clause might take place. It is also worth noticing that the overt antecedent postulated in the paraphrase given above has to be introduced by the preposition at, which is also a good indication as to the function of the clause within the sentence.
The adverbial function seems typical of the free relatives, as I have found no example of adverbial interrogatives. Although a noun phrase can perform an adverbial function, it must in that case be introduced by a preposition, as seen in the paraphrase of Grammarians are divided on this question.
For instance. Quirk et al. In the latter case, they behave like clauses cf. For Declerck also, such when- clauses are used in adverbial rather than nominal function In the case of restrictive relatives with an overt antecedent see examples 5 and 6 , the adverbial function is performed by the whole noun phrase formed by the antecedent plus its relative clause. In the case of non-restrictive relatives 26 , the antecedent of a when- or where- clause always functions as an adverbial, and as a consequence the relative pronoun does too; but since they do not form a single entity, the impression most of the time is that there are two separate time or place adverbials, with the second one being a repeat of the first, only with more information:.
Supper will be served at nineteen hundred hours and lights out will be at twenty-one hundred hours. Tomorrow morning reveille will be sounded at zero five hundred, when you will rise and have breakfast The use of the modal will in the clause also testifies to its true nature cf. Guillaume I now would like to make the difference between such examples and the following:.
OALD: It is even possible once more to obtain paraphrases containing overt antecedents, even if they appear a little redundant, hence somewhat clumsy:. However, these examples present a major difference with the previous ones from an enunciative point of view, namely in the way in which the clauses forming the utterance are located in relation to one another. As its name indicates, it is relative, hence located with respect to a locator, that is an antecedent.
If the antecedent is not expressed, it is because the context is clear enough to dispense with it; still, the clause itself cannot be a locator. It means that not only do these clauses describe the circumstances in which the action in the main clause can take place, but they are also decisive in bringing it about Thus the subordinate locator functions as a switch so to speak, or as a lever; it triggers off the realisation of the predicative relation contained in the superordinate cf.
There is to some extent a relation of cause and effect between them. Yet they are initial above all from an enunciative point of view, and as such they can also occur at the end of a sentence, with or without an intervening comma:.
So why, you may well ask, try to grow it then? The combination is dramatic and somehow unexpected in a senecio It is not the case for example 30 , however, as the present tense is used I will come back to this point. But the difference in the use of tenses only applies to the when- clauses with a future reference, and never to the where- clauses:. Visit my site for more information. Have a good day and keep on moving forward for that success.
Thanks for sharing such a wonderful article, I hope you could inspire more people. Visit my site for an offer you wouldn't want to refuse. Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony I found this sentence on internet and I would like to know whether or not it is correct. These would almost help students in establishing all those concerns and probabilities which are indeed considered to be so essential.
Post a Comment. Thursday, June 19, "is when" or "is where" clauses. Jones: 6. Do not use a when or where clause as a predicate noun. Do not define a word by saying it is a "when" or a "where. It is fine in casual writing, but it may not be appropriate in formal writing; it sounds a bit too informal for a formal definition. I can only speculate, but I suspect that there is a certain discrepancy between the word debate and the definition when A debate is an inter action, while a clause starting with when describes a point or period of time.
It is like saying a debate is a time when a group of people argue : a debate is not really a time. It would be better to use a noun that can be equated to debate , like this:. The intervention of this breaks the direct equation. There is no real discrepancy here, because this does not refer to the exact content of the when clause, but to a somewhat vaguer, implicit antecedent.
The vagueness still makes it less suitable for a formal definition. In Max Morenberg's Doing Grammar , a widely used synthesis of traditional and modern grammars widely used in college , he explains that "linking verbs must be followed by a noun or an adjective" p.
Readers who object to "Debate is when people argue" on stylistic grounds have likely forgotten the rule, but their ears are still attuned to the sound of the mistake.
This happens to me all of the time. I teach writing but am getting older; I find that I sometimes forget specific rules but know that a mistake "sounds wrong.
Richardson above is quite correct: copula verbs join two nouns as 'A debate is a formal discussion', or modify the subject noun as 'The debate was lively. In fact, what's been done is the elision of the preposition that introduces the adverbial phrase which modifies 'nap' in the past tense and answers the question: 'When did he nap?
The subordinate conjunctions 'when' and 'where' that began this discussion debate? However, there is nothing for them to modify since copula verbs are non-modifiable. Hence, we create a nonsense sentence. If a debate is to be defined, select a close cousin as e. If a debate is to be described, switch to a describing verb as in: 'A debate occurs when two matched sides discuss a proposition, the discussion being regulated by a moderator.
Schleicher's solution above is a correct one, but for the wrong reason. Yes, one way out of the faulty construction is to insert the additional words, 'taking place'; but these cannot be construed as having been left out.
Doing so automatically presumes the original author meant to describe a debate, not define the word itself, which the naked use of the copulative otherwise shows such intent, albeit malformed. Were Schleicher the original author, he's welcome to do as he did; but it's not the only way of describing a debate, as I just showed.
However, if he meant to define 'debate', he will need to stick with the copulative, give it a noun to join to the sentence's subject and supply whatever modifications are required for greater specificity. A simple way to understand the verb 'to be', and to use it correctly, is to think of arithmetic class: 'five and three are eight' 'five and three equals eight' Why use the plural form of the verb 'is'? Compound subject. But if we meant to say is that 'The sum of five and three is eight.
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