Kathleen, Herb, and all,
I think in my analysis I led us down a primrose path. I believe it was natural to look for an antecedent for "which," something I still failed to restore. Unfortunately for my analysis such a restorative paraphrase does not enlighten the syntax: "We may have to postpone some promises, which postponing will make it possible for us to get through this." My impression at this point is that the sentence is a pragmatic failure at coherence. I am going to have to listen to that commercial more carefully.
________________________________________
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Bruce Despain [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, June 05, 2009 3:36 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: which we're going to get through this
Kathleen,
I believe that using the idea of a resumptive pronoun will confuse matters here. The problem as I see it is that in "we're going to get through this" the "this" in my mind must be taken to refer to the present hard times and not the proposal that we may have to postpone some promises. It is true that postponing promises may bring on hard times personally, but the "this" seems to be referring to the difficulties brought on by the economy that would motivate the postponing. If we get through the postponing alone, we still have the economy to deal with. How will we get through that? The larger question would remain unresponded to.
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From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Kathleen M. Ward [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, June 04, 2009 3:55 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: which we're going to get through this
I am not sure about this, but in the original example might be just an
example of a free (or clause modifying) relative clause, with a
resumptive pronoun ("this," which would be referring to the whole "We
may have to postpone some promises."
English doesn't "have" resumptive pronouns, in the formal grammar, but
you'd be surprised how often they turn up in speech.
> "We may have
> to postpone some promises, which we're going to get through this."
On Jun 4, 2009, at 7:23 AM, Bruce Despain wrote:
> Herb,
>
> My impression is that the construction you are looking at is the
> result of certain elisions that the interpreter may have difficulty
> restoring. This is not to say that the construction is not
> reanalyzed as a co-ordination, just that perhaps it was not
> originally intended to be. Consider the possibility that the
> original was meant as "We may have to postpone some promises, which
> (if we do) we're going to get through this."
> Perhaps your other example has elisions of the definite reference:
> "We were going to go on a picnic (last) Saturday, (on) which
> (Saturday) it rained." I was reminded when seeing these sentences
> of the surprisingly common omission of elements of an adverb clause
> contained within a restrictive adjective clause: "She sent a letter
> which unless we get back, must ruin them both." - (Jespersen. A
> Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles, Vol. IV. 1931. P.
> 202) The complete omission of the adverbial element, tempting when
> it is so close to its antecedent, runs the risk of losing the
> connection of the adjective clause to that antecedent: and behold, a
> new interpretation and a correspondingly new syntactic analysis --
> grammaticalization in action.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]
> ] On Behalf Of STAHLKE, HERBERT F
> Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 10:46 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: which we're going to get through this
>
> I posted the following on the American Dialect Society List ADS-L,
> and I'm cross-posting to ATEG in hopes that some of you may have run
> into this curious construction and may be able to shed some light on
> it.
>
> There are a couple of TV ads on currently featuring a working-class
> guy telling his family, in one, and his son in the other, that he may
> get laid off. In the family ad he saiys something like "We may have
> to postpone some promises, which we're going to get through this."
> Those are not the exact words, but the use of "which" is as he uses it
> in the ad. I suspect the usage may be employed by the writers as a
> marker of class, and I've heard it before in sentences like "We were
> going to go on a picnic Saturday, which it rained." I don't remember
> hearing it used much by college educated speakers. The social
> contexts have been working class.
>
> Wh-indefinite pronouns or question words started to show up as
> relative pronouns in the 10th c. under the influence of Latin, but
> with the demise of English as a written standard after the Norman
> Conquest, the shift disappeared until English once again became a more
> widely used written language in the late 13th c. The wh-relatives
> came into literate, educated English between about 1300 and 1600, with
> a few changes in usage after that. The King James Version (1611)
> translates the first phrase of the Lord's Prayer as "Our father which
> art in heaven," but since about the 18th c. "which" has not been used
> to refer to humans.
>
> The usage of wh-relatives does seem to be related to level of
> education, and I wonder if the use of "which" as a sort of
> coordinating conjunction, as above, might be a hypercorrection.
> Speakers who don't have the professional class rules governing "which"
> know that some people use "which" in ways in which they themselves
> don't. The "which" plus coordinate clause construction arises as an
> unsuccessful attempt to emulate those rules. Treating these sentences
> in this way is a WAG. I've searched the ADS-L archives for postings
> dealing with "which," and I found the usual "that" vs. "which"
> discussions, quite a few of them in fact, but none dealing with the
> coordinating usage. Does anyone know of scholarship that deals with
> this construction?
>
> Herb
>
>
> Herbert F. W. Stahlke, Ph.D.
> Emeritus Professor of English
> Ball State University
> Muncie, IN 47306
> [log in to unmask]
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