Talk:Relative clause

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents 1 Hebrew commas 2 Language ordering 3 Japanese? 4 Moving things back to Relative pronoun 5 Archive1 6 A few points

[edit] Hebrew commas

User:Shlomital, I reverted your deletions on Hebrew punctuation, as what you deleted was not wrong and not insignificant. If you'd like to clarify it or add to it, go ahead, but it's simply wrong to say (as your edit summary implied) that commas are never used for restrictive clauses. You can note changing tendencies, recommendations of the Hebrew Academy (if it addressed this issue), but plenty of people still use commas in their restrictive clauses - indeed, from what I've seen, many more do than do not - and it's not appropriate to simply delete reference to that. Ruakh 04:41, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

User:Ruakh, the quote is "relative clauses in Modern Hebrew are always set off with commas", and the text afterwards is dependent on it. It is factually incorrect. It would be irresponsible of me to leave it standing. I keep track of the decisions of the Hebrew Academy. In 1994, the Hebrew Academy made sweeping changes in the punctuation, replacing the German rules with English rules. As a result, it is no longer legal to put commas around restrictive relative clauses. That's how things are, that's the truth. Those people who still use commas round restrictive clauses are behind the times, and acting contrary to the new rules of the Hebrew Academy. I will leave the section as it is, being tired of those back-and-forth redactions, but any decision on your part to stick to your revision will be academic irresponsibility. --Shlomital 15:00, 2005 May 13 (UTC)

Sorry, but "Modern Hebrew" does not necessarily/exclusively mean the Hebrew of the Hebrew Academy. What you say is definitely worth note, and the article should definitely be edited to reflect this additional information. But it's important to note the older rules, especially since many or most people still follow the older rules. Ruakh 15:19, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. I was just going to say the best compromise would be to mention both the old rules and the new ones, but you beat me to it. The section is now factually correct. --Shlomital 15:47, 2005 May 13 (UTC)

I'm glad that you're happy with the result, but I feel compelled to note: in my very first comment above, which I added within ten minutes of the first time I reverted your deletion, I said that you should add the Academy rules, just that you shouldn't remove all of what was already there. I wish you'd read what I wrote more carefully, rather than jumping to anger.

That said, I'm glad we have a more agreeable, more informative article now, thanks to the information you provided. I appreciate it. Ruakh 16:09, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Language ordering

Either the Arabic section should be moved first, to conform to the alphabetical order of the other languages, or a new ordering scheme should be used. If you do move the Arabic section first, then you'll want to move some of the explanation from the Hebrew section to the Arabic section, and have Hebrew refer to Arabic, rather than the other way around. Ruakh 04:41, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Japanese?

I don't speak a word of Japanese, so I'm on wobbly ground here, but the explanations provided under those examples make me wonder whether they are relative clauses at all. In German you can avoid a relative clause by using an adjectival construction (instead of "the house that Jack built" you can say "the by-Jack-built house"). This is not a relative, though it carries the same meaning. It sounds to me like those Japanese examples are doing something similar. If not, the explanation needs to be better. --Doric Loon 07:02, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

They are relative clauses.

ex.

kuroi neko (lit. is-black cat = a cat that is black)

kurokatta neko (lit. was-black cat = a cat that was black)

kao ga kuroi neko (lit. face SUBJ is-black cat = a cat whose face is black)

kuro-neko (lit. black cat = a black cat, a compound of two nouns)

In an SOV language like Japanese, which almost always has case markers and allows OSV too, a relative clause can be put before a noun without a relative pronoun because a verb in the middle of a sentence is clearly in a relative clause.

• (SV)SOV: S of the sentence has a relative clause
• (OV)SOV: ditto
• O(SV)SV: ditto
• O(OV)SV: ditto
• S(SV)OV: O of the sentence has a relative clause
• S(OV)OV: ditto
• (SV)OSV: ditto
• (OV)OSV: ditto

In an SVO language like English, relative pronouns are necessary.

• SVOVO: S(VO)VO? or SVO(VO)?
• S(SV)VO: a relative pronoun is unnecessary (as in "The man I saw bought a hat.")
• SVO(SV): ditto

- TAKASUGI Shinji 09:44, 2005 Apr 18 (UTC)

Re: your German example: Well, you can do that in English, too: "the house that Jack built" is the same as "the house built by Jack" or even "the Jack-built house," except that the first gives a tense (since built is a past-tense verb), while the second and third do not (since built is a past participle, suggesting aspect but not tense; I could write, "When they are forty, Jack and Jill will each build a house. The Jack-built house will be blue; the Jill-built, green"). If Japanese uses an actual verb in its relative clauses (as opposed to a verbal adjective), then I'd be inclined to accept them as relative clauses. (Of course, since Wikipedia is not a home for a original research, I guess it doesn't matter what we'll accept, but what scholars accept.) Ruakh 14:08, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It is an actual verb that Japanese uses. The only special thing about it is that it must be in the plain form (Shinji will correct me if I'm wrong). I'm not sure how to properly translate "The Jack-built house will be blue" contrastively, but "The house that Jack will build" is Jack ga tsukuru uchi, with Jack ga tsukuru "Jack will build" as a modifier. Cf Jack ga uchi o tsukuru "Jack will build a house" -- the verb is the same. --Pablo D. Flores 14:59, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It must be in the nonpast (plain) form if it means nonpast, like Jack ga tsukuru uchi (the house(s) that Jack builds/will build, nonpast) as opposed to Jack ga tsukutta uchi (the house(s) that Jack built, past).

The important thing is, the only possible translation of the cat that is black is kuroi neko in Japanese, though it looks like black cat literally.

By the way, in Japanese grammar, adjective means verb-like words that correspond to adjectives in European languages. They are distinguished from verbs because in Japanese adjectives end with -i while verbs end with -u. Therefore, in this sense, adjectives in world languages may or may not be combined with a copular verb. Adjectives, broadly defined, are a vague part of speech between verbs and nouns. In Mandarin, there are few differences between verbs and adjectives. In Ainu, there is no difference and you can say they are all verbs. See also SIL glossary of linguistic terms - What is an adjective? - TAKASUGI Shinji 17:17, 2005 Apr 18 (UTC)

Well, my question has certainly been answered by Takasugi Shinji's detaild explanation. Please put some of that in the article. It really IS interesting.--Doric Loon 18:44, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Moving things back to Relative pronoun

While I did (and do) support the move from relative pronoun to relative clause, I think we should move some things back to relative pronoun. For example, I think the section on English really should explain only the following:

• That relative clauses in English are usually indicated by relative pronouns, though sometimes simply by word order; and that in the latter case, the clauses are called contact clauses.
• What it means for a relative clause to be restrictive (with a note that this term can apply to adjectives in general, not just to relative clauses); that commas are used around non-restrictive relative clauses, but not restrictive ones.
• That choice of relative pronoun is governed by whether the antecedent is human, by whether the clause is restrictive, and by the role played by the relative pronoun in the relative clause. (The article should then link to Relative pronoun#Relative pronouns in English or whatnot.)
• That when the relative pronoun is the object of a preposition, the preposition can stand with the pronoun or separately.
• How to determine whether the relative pronoun can be suppressed.

and leave the rest to relative pronoun.

The French, German, and Spanish sections can all be shortened considerably, as they really only need to mention the use or non-use of commas, and what factors affect choice of relative pronoun (without going into detail about which relative pronouns are used in which circumstances).

The Hebrew section should be modified to emphasize the dual nature of asher and she- as relative pronouns and relativizers.

What do you all think? Ruakh 15:50, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

To be honest, I was happier when the whole thing was under "relative pronoun". Most of what I contributed was about the pronouns, because at that time that was what the article title asked for. Now it is under "relative clause" people are complaining it is too pronoun-oriented. They may be right, but that pronoun stuff is important.

You have to ask who this article is for. When I wrote all that stuff about English useage, I was aware that a typical reader might be one of my students who are struggling with English and come here asking for clear information on how to use relative pronouns - which are very difficult for foreign learners. I realise that other readers will be looking for more theoretical, linguistic explanations. I suspect it will be difficult really to please both groups in one article. However, splitting into a "pronoun" article and a "clause" article doesn't really solve that problem, and means any reader is going to have to go to both places to get a whole picture. What I WOULD be happy with is moving the English section to a new artile on "English relative clauses" (or pronouns? whatever!) which means the general article could have less of an English bias and could go into linguistic theory without learners being left unhelped. --Doric Loon 18:53, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Well, the problem is that the main, non-English-centric topic really is relative clause, but most of the subtleties and intricacies in English relative clauses pertain to the choice of relative pronoun. I think that it's impossible to provide any sort of whole picture in one article, because English's entire concept of relative clauses is tied to the rest of its syntax; but I do think relative clause should give enough background on relative clauses in general that the information at relative pronoun on choice of pronoun will give the reader enough information. For that matter, I'd imagine that an E.S.L. student coming from an Indo-European background probably won't even need much explanation on relative clauses in general, and will benefit from the condensation of the relative-pronoun-specific information into one article, whereas an E.S.L. student coming from a language that uses relativizers or no word will benefit from separating the overall explanation of relative clauses from the detailed explanation of choice of relative pronoun. Ruakh 22:43, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

And I do think it might be a good idea to have a separate article for the intricacies of English itself, especially given the amount of divergence between prescriptivists and descriptivists in this area, and given the variation between different dialects and registers. Ruakh 22:45, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Mea culpa! Relative clause has too much information on pronouns, and relative pronoun is now a stub. I'm of the opinion that an article on relative clauses should not include a large section on English usage, since this is not a tutorial or a reference English grammar but an international encyclopedia. See also Countering Systemic Bias. I strongly support the idea of having an article on English relative clauses, focused on usage, without theoretical explanations of restrictiveness etc. --Pablo D. Flores 01:17, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

OK, you've gone ahead and done this, and the resulting split looks fine, except:

• why do we need that stub article on "relative pronoun" at all? Unless someone is planning on doing something with it, make it a redirect.
• restrictiveness is too important for English relatives for us to leave it unremarked in the English article. Either move "restrictiveness in English" to the English article, or have it in both places.
• I don't know why some of you are so hung-up on the term "restrictive" that you are suppressing other terminologies. Most of the grammar books I have worked with (I cited Thompson and Martinet before) talk about "defining" and "non-defining" relative clauses in English, which I personally find far more helpful. Please reinstate this as an alternative term. --Doric Loon 13:57, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Relative pronoun is IMHO no longer a stub. Restrictiveness should be explained here as well as at English relative clauses, but most of the information in the "Restrictiveness in English" subsection is only needed at the latter. Restrictive is the term English grammarians have traditionally used, so I think it should be given as the main term, though I definitely think that defining should be given as an alternative term. I don't know why it was removed in the first place. Ruakh 17:05, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Well no, you've written relative pronoun almost from scratch since I saw it - it was a one-liner when I said it was a stub. Now it's fine. As far as restrictiveness is concerned, I have discovered there was already a dedicated article on this: restrictive clause. It was a bit thin, so I have modified it to fit in with what we have been doing here, and have cross-referenced. That should solve the problem of variation of terminology, and we can get away with using just "restrictive" in most other places. I have moved the section "restrictiveness in English" from this article to the English relative clauses article, where it really belongs - that makes sense, I think. So is everybody happy now? --Doric Loon 18:32, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Archive1

For older discussion, see Talk:Relative clause/Archive1. Topics discussed there include:

• Whether that is a relative pronoun, and how best to explain in the article that this is a matter of debate among linguists.
• Whether <preposition> + who is ever heard (or how often it is heard) in actual speech or writing.
• Contact clauses where an internal subject is suppressed (e.g., "the man (who) Jack believes will be king").
• Whether (none) should be included in the article's table of English pronouns, and if so, in which cells. (Note: the table now uses Ø instead of (none), but the question is the same.)
• In "from which I come" and "which I come from," which clause shows the preposition having moved, and which shows it being left in place. (Or, how best to rephrase the article so as to avoid the issue entirely.)
• The use of commas around relative clauses in German, and how best to express it in the article.
• Whether the article had an anti-traditional-grammar POV, and if so, how to neutralize it.
• Such terms as "relative determiner" and "relative pro-form," and how and whether they should be used in the article.
• Whether to move relative pronoun to relative clause. (Note: the page was later moved, which is why you see it here.)
• Whether any languages have distinct relative pronouns (that is, relative pronouns that are never used other than as relative pronouns), whether that's common, and whether and how to mention this in the article.

Note: if you feel the above summary to be non-NPOV in describing any of the discussions, or if there's a point of discussion that I missed, please feel free to modify the summary. Also, if there's a discussion that you think was still active (or that you want to re-activate), please feel free to move it back here from the archive. Thanks! Ruakh 14:52, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] A few points

1. "The antecedent of the relative clause (that is, the noun that is modified by it) can in theory be the subject of the main clause, or its object, or any other verb argument." First, I think using the term 'main clause' here is misleading - a relative clause is by definition (as far as I can tell!) never a main clause, at least in the usage with which I am familiar. I think either 'relative clause' or just 'clause' would be better. Second, the term 'argument' does not generally include temporal phrases such as 'the day' or locative/directional phrases such as 'the place' (which are normally called adjuncts), and therefore this definition would suggest that "the day I met him" or "the place I met him" are not possible. I suppose the other reading of the sentence is that the whole noun phrase+relative clause can itself be any argument of the clause containing it, but I don't think this is what was intended, especially given what is said in the sentence following it.

2. "A restrictive (or defining, or integrated) relative clause is one that restricts the reference of the noun it modifies, that is, that makes it definite." How does it make it definite? The 'phrase' "man I saw yesterday" is surely not definite, and yet this consists of a noun plus a relative clause restricting its reference. Adding 'the' would of course make it definite, but adding 'a' would not. If anything, the RC restricts the set of entities to which the phrase could possibly refer.

3. "The main clause in (2) could stand by itself and still convey part of the meaning. The main clause in (1) cannot stand by itself and give the same information, since the point of the relative clause is precisely to define the antecedent." Removing the relative clauses from these sentences has precisely the same effect in both cases: (1') "Jack built the house" and (2') "Jack built a big house". I don't think the RRC defines the antecedent in any way that the NRRC does not. I can see the point of what is being said; I just don't think it's very precise.

4. I think the use of the term 'relative pronoun' is a bit confusing here. (I was certainly confused!) It seems to cover two distinct items here: true relative pronouns (the wh-words) and complementisers ('that'). I realise that this is very much a 'generative' perspective, but I think it would be unwise to ignore it in a serious article on grammar (and it is quite well-motivated).

I would make changes, but I thought I'd ask for your thoughts on these things first, as I may have missed something. Thanks. Matve 11:42, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

All sounds good to me, but then I'm looking at it from a generative perspective too. It seems to be a general fact on Wikipedia that grammar articles are worded so as to wind up generativists (e.g. I never managed to convince a guy on Gerund that present participles weren't adjectives). Cadr 14:53, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Heh, that was me. I think the issue is that we define adjective differently; you define it as "a word that behaves syntactically the same way that big does", whereas I define it as "a word, phrase, or clause that describes or modifies a noun." (The latter is certainly the traditional definition; if you can show that the former has become the standard definition in linguistics, then I will of course concede.) Ruakh 16:30, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that it's mostly a definitional question. However, if your definition of adjective covers the present participle in a sentence such as "I was reading", I don't see why it shouldn't cover the verb in a sentence such as "I read". Both seem to meet your definition of adjective to an equal extent. So, for the purposes of describing the distribution of present participles, describing them as adjectives isn't any help. For other purposes (I'm not sure what purpose word classes are supposed to have in traditional grammar, since they don't seem to be required to make definite predictions about distributions), saying that present participles are adjectives might work fine. Cadr 21:49, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand your objection no. 1, Matve. The antecedent of the relative pronoun is not in the relative clause, it is in the main clause. Of course a relative clause cannot itself be a main clause. But it refers back to a main clause. The antecedent is part of the main clause, and is usually either the subject or the object thereof. I do agree that I am not thrilled about the word argument, which is used in a technical way most readers will not understand. But I think you are underestimating the difference between a relative clause which restricts/defines and one which does not. To me they are worlds apart. --Doric Loon 16:18, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Re 1: Yes, I know that the antecedent of the relative clause is in the main clause - or in fact the 'next highest clause'. The problem is that one sentence suggests we are talking about the verbal arguments of the main clause, and the next sentence suggests we are talking about the verbal arguments of the relative clause:

"The antecedent of the relative clause (that is, the noun that is modified by it) can in theory be the subject of the main clause, or its object, or any other verb argument. However, many languages do not have the possibility, or a straightforward syntactic pattern, to relativise arguments other than the core ones (subject and direct object)." [my italics]

Of course, it is coherent to talk about the main clause and then the relative clause in turn. But the structure of the paragraph suggests a different reading: that although it is possible in theory for any argument to be relativised (i.e. any position within the relative clause), many languages can only relativise subject and object (which is true, as described by the Keenan-Comrie Accessibility Hierarchy). On this reading, the 'main clause' bit sticks out like a sore thumb. At the very least there is a lack of clarity.

Re 2: I'm not sure the problem is that the argument is too technical; it's that it's too vague. I think it's interesting that you write "restricts/defines" as if they are identical, which they surely aren't. A restrictive relative clause restricts by definition, but any type of (dependent) relative clause defines, unless we make clear what is meant by 'define'. Even a simple copular sentence defines: e.g., "A guitar is a six-stringed instrument". I accept that terminology is a minefield in these matters, but the point is that I'm not sure what the objection to the objection really is! Anyway, thanks for replying to my original post. Matve 20:16, 10 April 2006 (UTC)