0

i have following doubt on wh clause, there are two sentences which i feel are grammatically correct, but i have doubt that, is that fine two use them?

  1. He is the owner of the house, who can assist you.
  2. He is the owner of the house, where we lived for 5 years.

in the above two sentences ‘who’ and ‘where’ describing different words of the first sentence. so are they correct right?

4
  • Remember the capital letters for the start of sentences and the word "I". Also the spelling of the words "to" "too" and "two". You can edit to fix this.
    – James K
    Apr 12, 2018 at 14:24
  • The first one definitely sounds awkward because the nonrestrictive clause is not adjacent to the noun it modifies. I had to read it a couple of times to correctly parse it, which is a bad sign. Apr 12, 2018 at 14:24
  • here i don’t see any awkward it’s an adjective cluase here in first sentence ‘who can assist’ describes the noun(owner) there is no rule that it should be adjacent to the noun which modifies.
    – Sunil K
    Apr 12, 2018 at 16:02
  • In 1), it implies there might be two or more owners. And in 2) you don't need a comma. John is the owner of the house, who can assist you [and not Tom.]
    – Lambie
    Apr 12, 2018 at 19:28

1 Answer 1

1

The first one is awkward. There is only one possible meaning, in context, but why not say:

He is the owner of the house, and he can assist you.

The second could be paraphrased:

He is the owner of the house, and we lived in the house for five years.

That is a correct sentence, but there is an odd jump in focus. I think you want to use a restrictive clause, In which case you don't used a comma:

He is the owner of the house where we lived for five years.

2
  • here i don’t see any awkward it’s an adjective cluase here in first sentence ‘who can assist’ describes the noun(owner) there is no rule that it should be adjacent to the noun which modifies.
    – Sunil K
    Apr 12, 2018 at 16:02
  • Please feel free to write your own answer and allow the community to vote.
    – James K
    Apr 12, 2018 at 17:28

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .