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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Sender: American Dialect Society
<[log in to unmask]>
Poster: Jonathan Lighter <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re:
"I've a 24" 2.4Ghz iMac _that's_ hard drive recently packed
in."
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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.
> >
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