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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