>ATEGers:
>
>Someone who came across my website sent me the following message:
>
>>I am having the hardest time with this sentence:
>>
>>       That that that that man ate was poisonous shocked Max.
>>
>>What is the category of the third that?  I think it is a relative
>>pronoun, but I don't know how to diagram it.
>
>The entirely grammatical sentence that she quotes might amuse your students
>and be useful in illustrating four very different roles for "that."
>Someone struggling with the sentence might consider this paraphrase:
>
>        [The fact that] [the thing] [which] [that particular] man
>        ate was poisonous shocked Max.
>
>The writer was right that the third "that" is a relative pronoun.
>Honorable mention goes to the first to identify the other three that's in
>the sentence.
>
>Dick Veit
>University of North Carolina at Wilmington

Dick:

This is so easy to illustrate with a traditional diagram!

(1) The first that is what I call an expletive--i.e., the that that
introduces a nominal clause (in this case, the clause as subject of
shocked);  some linguists call it a nominalizer; (in a simpler sentence it
would read "That the mushroom was poisonous shocked Max)
(2) the second that is a demonstrative pronoun, the headword of the noun
phrase that is the subject of shocked; it's a noun phrase (or, in this
case, pronoun phrase) with one post-pronoun modifier, a relative clause);
(3) the third that is, indeed, a relative pronoun, direct object of the
verb ate in the relative clause; the clause is "that man ate that";
(4) the fourth is the demonstrative pronoun that, functioning as a
determiner for the subject headword man in the relative clause--i.e., that
man.

A traditional diagram would clear this up in no time flat!

Martha Kolln