I would not use 'that'. I understand this is not the subject
under discussion, but the friend is a person, not an object so requires
a personal pronoun. One could say "...if he had someone he could play
with."

	Caroline

On Tue, 19 Sep 2000, Johanna Rubba wrote:

>  "(1)The little child is lonely; he would be happier if he had someone that
> he can play with."
> 
> Do any of the native speakers on this list find this sentence
> grammatical? I can't imagine this being acceptable to anyone, but maybe
> I'm wrong. The 'that' clause requires 'could'.
> 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Johanna Rubba   Assistant Professor, Linguistics
> English Department, California Polytechnic State University
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> "Understanding is a lot like sex; it's got a practical purpose,
> but that's not why people do it normally"  -            Frank  Oppenheimer
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