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After years of uncertainty and upheaval allowed ISIS militants to gain a foothold in the country, the U.S. has begun carrying out airstrikes to try and oust them.

Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2016/08/04/africa/libya-chaos-in-graphics/index.html

Don't you think that there is "that" omitted in the sentence above (…upheaval that allowed…). I was thought that when relative pronoun “that” is a subject, you cannot omit the relative pronoun. Or the first clause is not a relative clause?

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  • It's not a that that is missing it is a which which is missing. After years of uncertainty and upheaval which allowed ISIL militants to gain a foothold in the country, the U.S. has begun carrying out airstrikes to try and oust them.
    – Joe Dark
    Commented Aug 25, 2016 at 19:43
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    @JoeDark I think not. that allowed ISIS militants to gain a foothold in the country looks like a restrictive clause to me. The clause is restrictive because without it, them in the second clause has no referent. Thus, either which or that is acceptable here. According to Oxford Dictionaries: "Restrictive relative clauses can be introduced by that, which, whose, who, or whom."
    – P. E. Dant Reinstate Monica
    Commented Aug 25, 2016 at 19:58
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    @Joe No, bare relatives are ungrammatical when the gap is in subject position, so that parse is impossible.
    – user230
    Commented Aug 25, 2016 at 20:18

2 Answers 2

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All three sentences are grammatical:

After years of uncertainty and upheaval allowed ISIS militants to gain a foothold in the country, the U.S. has begun carrying out airstrikes to try and oust them.

After years of uncertainty and upheaval which allowed ISIS militants to gain a foothold in the country, the U.S. has begun carrying out airstrikes to try and oust them.

After years of uncertainty and upheaval that allowed ISIS militants to gain a foothold in the country, the U.S. has begun carrying out airstrikes to try and oust them.

After weeks of static and interference made him want to throw the damn phone against a brick wall, he decided to take it into the shop for repair.

After weeks of static and interference that made him want to throw the damn phone against a brick wall, he decided to take it into the shop for repair.

After weeks of static and interference which made him want to throw the damn phone against a brick wall, he decided to take it into the shop for repair.

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  • 1
    But the first one is not a relative clause, isn't it.
    – bart-leby
    Commented Aug 26, 2016 at 4:49
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    In #1, allowed is not part of a relative clause modifying years of uncertainty and upheaval with the word that having been omitted, as you thought might be the case. The phrase years of uncertainty and doubt is the subject of the verb allowed. BTW, you want to ask "is it?" not "isn't it?"
    – TimR
    Commented Aug 26, 2016 at 8:50
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As a learner, I would say it is similar to this pattern:

After (subordinate conjunction) [X happened], {U.S has done Y}.

I can parse the sentence as below:

After = subordinate conjunction

Subordinate clause= years of uncertainty and upheaval allowed ISIS militants to gain a foothold in the country.

Main clause: the U.S. has begun carrying out airstrikes to try and oust them

Thus, years of uncertainty and upheaval is the subject of the subordinate clause.

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