Grammar May 11th

 

Relative clauses

A)  Different clauses

“The woman who lived in Salem was accused of witchcraft.”
Where is the relative clause?  What is its antecedent?   
 
Compare with:
“The woman, who lived in Salem, was accused of witchcraft”.

Which difference(s) do you notice?



B)  Different pronouns
1)   Subject or object ?

1.  He is the playwright who wrote the tragedy ______
2.   The girl whom he accused was his niece.______
3.   The problems Ø  they could not explain became mysteries.___
4.   The story which I read was on the blog.____

2)   which antecedent ?

Complete with : who, whom, which, that , 
a)    If the pronouns are subjects :




human antecedent


Ex: the man ________   was one of the judges was Hawthorne's ancestor.

EX2: the girl,______ was not afraid of them, was brave.


non-human antecedent


EX: The words  __________  were scary were uttered by the girl.
EX2: The text, ______ is on the blog, deals with the witch hunt.


b)   if the pronouns are objects :


human antecedent

The student  ____________
you saw before is Tom.
NB : The student,  ______      you heard before, is Tom. (no that, no  Ø  if it is a non-defining clause )

non-human antecedent
The text_____________ you read earlier is  an article…

The document, _________ you read earlier, is an article. (non-defining)
Going further

1)  whose

Observe: Tituba, whose story is disturbing, is a slave....
We could also write: Tituba is a slave:    

_________ story is disturbing.

 
What can you infer about “whose”?


2)  , which
We have understood everything, which is great news.

What does  “,which” refer to?
It refers to ________________

3)  What

They said what the men wanted to hear.

 
Rephrase “what”?

They said      _____________________    the men wanted to hear.

 

NB: How would you translate “tout ce que”? ____________

 

 

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