We’ve had considerable discussion of relative “that” from time to time, and I thought the following exchange from ADS-L might be of interest.

Herbert F. W. Stahlke, Ph.D.

Emeritus Professor of English

Ball State University

Muncie, IN  47306

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Subject:      Re: "I've a 24" 2.4Ghz iMac _that's_ hard drive recently packed
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I mentioned this some years ago. I had a freshman in the early '80s who
insisted that "that's" was correct because "whose" referred to people.

When I surveyed English Department graduate students with a
fill-in-the-blank quiz, a fair number filled in the blanks with "that's"
instead of "whose."

God knows what they wrote in their own papers. They were mainly working on
masters' rather than doctoral degrees, if that makes anyone feel better.  And
did I mention that the degrees would be in English?  Yeah, I guess I did.

JL

>
> On Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 4:30 PM, Laurence Horn <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
> > it's an instance of "that" (reanalyzed from complementizer to
> > relative pronoun) in the genitive, as noted.
> >