>ATEGers: > >Someone who came across my website sent me the following message: > >>I am having the hardest time with this sentence: >> >> That that that that man ate was poisonous shocked Max. >> >>What is the category of the third that? I think it is a relative >>pronoun, but I don't know how to diagram it. > >The entirely grammatical sentence that she quotes might amuse your students >and be useful in illustrating four very different roles for "that." >Someone struggling with the sentence might consider this paraphrase: > > [The fact that] [the thing] [which] [that particular] man > ate was poisonous shocked Max. > >The writer was right that the third "that" is a relative pronoun. >Honorable mention goes to the first to identify the other three that's in >the sentence. > >Dick Veit >University of North Carolina at Wilmington Dick: This is so easy to illustrate with a traditional diagram! (1) The first that is what I call an expletive--i.e., the that that introduces a nominal clause (in this case, the clause as subject of shocked); some linguists call it a nominalizer; (in a simpler sentence it would read "That the mushroom was poisonous shocked Max) (2) the second that is a demonstrative pronoun, the headword of the noun phrase that is the subject of shocked; it's a noun phrase (or, in this case, pronoun phrase) with one post-pronoun modifier, a relative clause); (3) the third that is, indeed, a relative pronoun, direct object of the verb ate in the relative clause; the clause is "that man ate that"; (4) the fourth is the demonstrative pronoun that, functioning as a determiner for the subject headword man in the relative clause--i.e., that man. A traditional diagram would clear this up in no time flat! Martha Kolln