Karl,
Here's my (limited) thinking on whether we should call the 'which'
structure a fragment or a dependent clause in need of a comma instead of
a period.  It should indeed, according to formal convention, merely be
joined with the sentence before.  But the writer is creating a main
clause in which the former relative pronoun is acting like a
demonstrative pronoun.  It seems to me to be a language change in
progress--one that like others is caused through misuse or error.

In your "puppy" example, the error is so non-standard that it's hard for
me to accept it is even marginally acceptable.  I think that's because,
as you indicate, the 'which' is not behaving at all like 'this' would.
However, some of the other examples given in this thread have dealt with
'which' has a subject function, rather than direct object (as in your
'puppy' sentence).  It's hard for us to judge now that we're so
conscious of this issue, but I'd guess that a sentence like A is more
acceptable than B (forget the sentence-ending preposition though!):

A.  The puppy chewed up your slippers. _Which_ was something I warned
you about.
B.  The puppy chewed up your slippers. _Which_ I warned you would
happen.

IMO, the 1st example is still an error but is taking on characteristics
of a 'normal' sentence because 'which' has a subject (rather than DO)
function, creating a statement that approximates a standard sentence.

Larry


>>> [log in to unmask] 09/28/04 7:33 PM >>>
That grammar is not an either/or proposition is a point well taken.

In this case, though, I'm still struggling to see any grammatical way
that 'which' behaves like a demonstrative. Notably, it still is fonted
when it replaces the object, something that never happens with the
unequivocal demonstratives:

  The puppy chewed up your slippers. _Which_ I warned you would happen.
  The puppy chewed up your slippers. I warned you _this_ would happen.

But enough of such technicalities. (There's a fragment for you!)
Consider this: if any of these clauses were linked to the previous
sentence with a comma, no one would dispute that they were relative
clauses. Why, then, do we think that the author's choice of a period
instead of a comma changes the status of the second clause? We don't
make the same assumption when a student commits a comma splice. That is,
we don't think the choice of a comma there converts the second
independent clause into a dependent one.

Calling 'which' demonstrative, I suppose lets us 'save' the sentence as
independent clause and therefore claim that we're following the ordinary
rules. But I don't think such sentences need to be saved at all.
Strategic fragments are a useful part of writing.

Karl Hagen
Department of English
Mount St. Mary's College




Larry Beason wrote:

>Briefly put, I think 'which' is acting both like a relative pronoun
jAND
>a demonstrative pronoun in most of the  examples we've discussed.  It's
>one of many causes where an either/or approach to grammar is
misleading.
> I'm not saying that all instances of 'which' used in such ways are
"ok"
>in terms of formal English, but I can certainly see that 'which' is
>evolving, for better or worse.
>
>Let me toss out a related example that's relatively (pardon the pun)
>common--the use of "in which case" to begin a sentence.  Again, it's a
>phrase I see in competent writing.  Here's an example I made up and is
>probably not  pretty:
>
>"The president might visit the Florida panhandle.  In which case we
>will dismiss class so that we can meet him."
>
>Here, 'which' seems to behave as a demonstrative adjective--rather than
>a demonstrative pronoun.  Or again it could just be understandably
>dismissed as a fragment containing a relative pronoun acting as an
>adjective, even though 'which' as a 'relative adjective' is not very
>common.
>
>Larry
>
>-------------------------------
>Larry Beason
>Director of Composition
>Dept. of English, Univ. of South Alabama
>Mobile, AL 36688
>251-460-7861
>-------------------------------
>
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