relative clauses

Nombre de messages : 11 Date d'inscription : 22/05/2006

Hello Doudou,

How many relative clauses are there in this sentence, two?

Anyone who is familiar with American media receives the impression that Americans are not too far removed from the days of the Wild West when guys with guns took care of business, both private and public.

There aren't any underlying relative pronouns, are there?

Would you have, by any chance, one sentence with let's say 2 evident relatives and 1 or 2 underlying relative pronouns?

Thanks in advance.
Hela

Hi, Hela. Welcome to my forum. You can call me Ed.

Anyone who is familiar with American media receives the impression that Americans are not too far removed from the days of the Wild West when guys with guns took care of business, both private and public.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by an underlying relative pronoun. English stands alone among the Germanic languages in having a zero relative pronoun. It is an alternative to that in a restrictive relative clause, except that it cannot be the subject of the clause's main verb.

This is the house that I was born in.
This is the house Ø I was born in.

Relative clauses headed by zeros are frequently called contact clauses in TEFL contexts.

Here's an example of a sentence with two visible relative pronouns and one zero pronoun:

It's obvious Ø the current strife between these two nations will require a mediator who is capable of developing effective strategies which will lead to a durable resolution of their conflict with each other.
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Permets-moi de souligner qu'il existe très peu d'accord entre les grammairiens sur les termes ou l'emploi des termes grammaticaux.

Chaque école de grammairiens a créé de nouveaux termes ou utilisent différemment les termes déjà créés pour expliquer les divers aspects de la syntaxe, et ils le font par un biais personnel.

Nombre de messages : 11 Date d'inscription : 22/05/2006

Cher Ed j'espère que vous êtes encore en ligne et que vous pourrez me répondre bientôt.

Dans la phrase "Anyone who is familiar with American media receives the impression that Americans are not too far removed from the days of the Wild West when guys with guns took care of business, both private and public."

Ne considère-t-on pas le "relative adverb" "when" introduisant une proposition relative de temps? l'antécédent de "when" n'est-il pas "the day of the Wild West" et peut donc être remplacé par "the days of the Wild West on which guys with guns..." ?

Merci bcp pour la phrase que vous m'avez donné. Pourrais-je en avoir une autre avec 3 ou 4 relatifs aussi mais dont un est un zero relative et un autre adverbe et non pas pronom? J'espère que je vous en demande pas trop... Embarassed

Hier je vous ai envoyé un PM sur ce site, pourriez-vous y jeter un oeil, SVP.

Merci d'avance
Hela

Yes, when is a relative adverb; and you can replace it on which, although in the sentence you provided, it would hardly sound like authentic English speech.

A sentence with three relative pronouns is already rather clumsy (difficile à manier). A sentence with even more would be unnecessarily long and hardly representative of normal English speech. German literature abounds in such monstrous sentences, but English tends to express its ideas using the least amount of words.

Nombre de messages : 11 Date d'inscription : 22/05/2006

Est-ce que "that" dans "the impression that Americans..." est un relatif ici dont l'antécédent est "impression"? Est-ce qu'on peut l'omettre? Et est-ce que la relative est "that Americans are not too far removed from the days of the Wild West", et est-ce qu'elle est restrictive ?

Encore merci Smile

Yes, it functions as a relative pronoun in that sentence, and can, as is customary in English, be omitted without doing violence to the meaning of the sentence. The relative clause of this sentence would be considered restrictive.

According to the rules of a prescriptive English grammar, A nonrestrictive, or nondefining, clause is one that can be regarded as parenthetical:

My house, which has a blue door, needs painting.

The italicized words are effectively an aside and could be deleted. The real point of the sentence is that the house needs painting; the blue door is incidental.

Use commas to set off nonrestrictive elements, which contribute to, but do not determine, the meaning of the sentence. These elements may be clauses (groups of words that contain a subject and a verb) or phrases (groups of words that do not contain both a subject and a verb).

A restrictive, defining, clause is one that is essential to the sense of the sentence.

The mansion that the Rockerfellers built has been sold.

Here the relative clause is a defining characteristic, it helps to distinguish the mansion from other mansions.

Restrictive clauses or phrases are not separated off with commas. A restrictive clause or phrase is essential to the meaning of the sentence; it defines the word it modifies by "restricting" its meaning. Eliminating a restrictive element from a sentence changes its meaning dramatically.
Note that nonrestrictive and restrictive clauses must be introduced by the appropriate relative pronoun.

Nombre de messages : 11 Date d'inscription : 22/05/2006

Merci Ed

You're quite welcome, Hela. Bonne soirée.