Helene,
To expand on my cryptic response to Martha, "that" is the older of the two ways of starting a relative clause. "Who" doesn't appear in relative clauses until the 15th century. "That" appears six centuries earlier. At the time, "that", or its ancestor, was not a pronoun. It also is not a pronoun in modern English. It is simply a subordinating conjunction. This addresses directly the question of whether or not "that" can refer to humans. It's a conjunction. Conjunctions don't refer to anything. Using "that" in something like "The man that met me at the airport" is fine because "that" is a subordinating conjunction and doesn't replace the subject or stand for the subject or refer to "the man" because only pronouns refer and it's not a pronoun.
The rule that "that" can't refer to humans is a stylistic preference based on a faulty grammatical analysis. I don't claim to be the first to argue that relative "that" isn't a pronoun. Otto Jespersen, probably the greatest grammarian ever in the history of English, argued for it in great detail in the first half of the 20th century.
I haven't presented the evidence for the conjunction analysis, because I've done that before on this list, but I'll be glad to if you'd like to see it.
Herb Stahlke
Another Ball Stater
Everyone: I always read your discussions and appreciate the fact that you
know much more about grammar than I ever will. Here is a question for you
experts.
We all know that language is fluid and that what is heard is picked up and
practiced by many. Recently I seem to be hearing "He is the one that went"
or "Those that want ice cream must come to get it!" I was always under the
impression that whenever we speak of or refer to people, we should use
"who"--"He is the one who went"; "Those who want ice cream...". Has this
changed? Was it never true?
Thanks for your input. Helene A. Hoover (Cassopolis Public Schools, formerly
Ivy Tech and Ball State)
>From: Martha Kolln <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: appositive vs relative clause
>Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 11:29:32 -0500
>
>Beth,
>
>I would add to Bruce's description of the two "that"s: In the
>relative clause, "that" has a slot to fill in the clause itself--that
>of subject (and this is always true of the relative pronouns and
>relative adverbs that introduce adjectival clauses: pronouns fill a
>nominal slot or, in the case of the possessive "whose," a determiner
>slot; relative adverbs function as an adverbial in the clause); in
>the nominal clause, "that" serves only as an introducer, a
>nominalizer, with no function in the clause itself. Students who
>have learned traditional diagramming can picture the nominalizer
>"that" hovering over the clause, like an outsider; they can picture
>the relative pronoun firmly settled on or attached to the clause's
>main line.
>
>I call the relative-clause "that" a relative pronoun (I've learned
>only recently that this term is debatable); I call the nominalizer
>"that" an expletive, as many traditional grammarians do.
>
>Martha
>
>
>
>
>
>>Beth,
>>
>>I would like to mention how I approach this with my students. This
>>may help, though you seem to reach the same point another way.
>>
>>One function of an adjective is to identify the reference of a noun.
>>The noun also can serve to help identify the reference of another
>>noun. This is the appositive. By the same token the noun clause
>>and the adjective clause can both have an identifying function.
>>There are a good number of particular nouns that need further
>>identification, and the noun clause is naturally used with them:
>>fact, claim, rumor, statement, decision, idea, etc. These all
>>denote concepts which are potentially worded as sentences. In such
>>cases it is possible to express (redundantly) both functions
>>(identifying adjective/statement) by repeating the connective
>>"that." Hence, "They espoused the belief that is that God exists"
>>has two connectives. The first "that" is the connective of an
>>adjective clause (relative, pointing to "belief") and the second is
>>the connective of the noun clause. If you can build this redundant
>>construction logically, then you have the appositive.
>>
>>Bruce
>>
>>>>> [log in to unmask] 3/9/2005 7:45:48 AM >>>
>>
>>Thanks, everyone. The "which" test does work on sentence 1, but not
>>sentence 2. Maybe we idiomatically prefer "the fact that . . . " or
>>maybe I should have agreed that sentence 2 was an appositive? I can see
>>that it's definitely an appositive in the sentence "That fact, that they
>>didn't like chocolate, surprised her"--but that's not the same
>>sentence.
>>
>>Ultimately, I guess it doesn't matter that much. These sentences won't
>>appear on any test--the students wrote the sentences for a different
>>activity. I can just agree that sometimes it's really hard to tell what
>>a clause is doing, just like it's sometimes really hard to tell what a
>>prepositional phrase is doing, and leave it at that.
>>
>>Thanks,
>>
>>Beth
>>
>>>Here are a couple of example sentences with the suspected appositives
>>>in brackets:
>>>
>>>1. The book, [that was titled 'Great Expectations',] was a classic.
>>>
>>>2. The fact [that they didn't like chocolate] surprised her.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>Beth Rapp Young
>><http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~byoung>http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~byoung
>>
>>University of Central Florida
>>From Promise to Prominence: Celebrating 40 Years.
>>
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