Timeline for Relative pronouns - use of where and that/which
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
6 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Dec 2, 2017 at 8:37 | comment | added | BillJ | @Clare Your example "Where I grew up was terrible" is irrelevant here since it is an entirely different construction to that of the OP's. Your example is a 'fused' relative construction in which "where" is a 'fused' relative word meaning "the place where". Thus "where I grew up" is a noun phrase" in which "where" is simultaneously head of the NP and the relativised element. It has nothing to with the erroneous function of "where" as a subject, which was the reason the OP's second example was ungrammatical. | |
| Dec 1, 2017 at 16:36 | comment | added | green_ideas | On a related note, where can be used, actually is used, in sentences such as Where I grew up was terrible and where I grew up there was a park on every corner. | |
| Dec 1, 2017 at 16:11 | history | migrated | from english.stackexchange.com (revisions) | ||
| Nov 26, 2017 at 18:37 | comment | added | BillJ | @TShirt57 Yes, that's what he is saying, just as I did in my comment above. "Where" is indeed an adjunct, but not to "I". Adjuncts are modifiers in clause structure, not modifiers of nouns. In your example, the relative clause means "I learned to ride a bike in that park". You have it right about your "Paris" example. | |
| Nov 26, 2017 at 17:56 | comment | added | TShirt57 | Thanks Colin. So from what you're saying I would say that in the following sentence (taken from my workbook) ---- That's the park where I learned to ride a bike---- 'where' can't be the subjec, it can only be an adjunct to 'I' And in this sentence ---- Paris is a city which/that has a lot of monuments ----- 'which/that' function as the subject - is that correct? (Apologies I'm struggling with formatting - can't seem to add line breaks.) | |
| Nov 26, 2017 at 17:37 | history | answered | Colin Fine | CC BY-SA 3.0 |