Larry,
I'm not sure how you can tell that the writer intended to create an
independent clause. Since deliberate fragments are common in
professional writing (apart from the most formal contexts), and since
the original quotation came from the New York Times, where I think we
can assume writers and editors both have a fairly good command of the
language, what causes us to assume ignorance? This isn't a student paper.
I can think of many contexts in which the full-stopped version reads
much better than one with a comma, since the period signals a longer
pause, and therefore more emphasis on 'which,' than a comma would. That,
of course, can't be judged out of context, but I would suggest that
emphasis, and not changing grammatical categories, drives the choice of
punctuation. To think of this as "error" distorts the discussion in
unfortunate ways.
We tell our writing students (or at least I do) that the formal rules
can be suspended for rhetorical effect, but that they have to know the
rules in order to make those departures meaningful. The subtext of that
message is typically "you can break the rules, but not in my class." So
when does the point come where writers can break the rules without
censure? Should we really be such schoolmarms as to assume that
professional writers are ignorant if they don't follow the letter of a
law simplified for students? Or could those writers just be deploying
the subtler aspects of writing that we tend to ignore in the struggle to
get young minds to master the basics?
On the puppy example (and here I'm going to get technical, so those who
don't care for nit-picking discussions might want to stop reading) I
have to assume that what you find non-standard is the punctuation.
Syntactically, that's clearly a construction one hears every day. It's
not dialectally marked, and it's easy to come up with scores more
examples, both in a broad reference and with 'which' pointing to an NP
antecedent.
I want to separate the punctuation issue from the syntax, so for the
moment, ignore the choice of comma vs. period and assume we link the
clauses with a comma.
The puppy chewed up your slippers, which I warned you would happen.
Some usage books do object to this use of 'which' (although as has been
noted, the objection is controversial even within the prescriptive
tradition), but they don't object to the structure of the relative
clause; they object to having an entire clause stand as the antecedent.
In other words, they assert (incorrectly in my view) that 'which' has an
ambiguous antecedent. In terms of the structure of the clause itself,
there's nothing at all wrong. But let's take those usage guides as
gospel and look at another sentence:
My puppy chewed up your slippers, which I know you loved.
Like the original example 'which' has been raised from the embedded
clause ("you loved ___"). And the clause would be unexceptional by any
prescriptive standard. [Correction from my earlier post: I had intended
to give an example of a simple object fronting, but it's actually a
subject of an embedded clause. For the point at issue (fronting), the
raising works in much the same way, but calling 'which' the object was
wrong.]
Now consider the alternative version that uses periods. Assume that the
writer wants to signal a pause that is longer than a comma.
My puppy chewed up your slippers. Which I know you loved.
Has the second clause suddenly become independent? Clearly not. If we
call this an error, that only means that we place a higher priority on
following rules than on rhetorical effect. There's nothing demonstrative
here. The demonstrative equivalent, "This I know you loved," is only
possible if we understand a marked fronting of the pronoun, and there's
nothing marked about the word order of the which clause.
Another reason to think that "which sentences" aren't demonstratives is
their position. However we punctuate it, the which-clause is clearly a
supplement to the what comes immediately before, be that a noun phrase,
a clause, or some other constituent. You cannot separate this
which-clause from its referent, nor can the which clause serve in a
summative function, as we often see with demonstrative pronouns (e.g.,
"This shows..." or "This [insert noun here[ shows"...) For that reason,
you never see such which-clauses starting a paragraph.
So I suggest that this sort of which-clause continues to follow the
syntactic rules of English that have been around for centuries. It does
depart from the basic rules of formal punctuation, but for good
rhetorical reason.
Karl Hagen
Department of English
Mount St. Mary's College
Larry Beason wrote:
>Karl,
>Here's my (limited) thinking on whether we should call the 'which'
>structure a fragment or a dependent clause in need of a comma instead of
>a period. It should indeed, according to formal convention, merely be
>joined with the sentence before. But the writer is creating a main
>clause in which the former relative pronoun is acting like a
>demonstrative pronoun. It seems to me to be a language change in
>progress--one that like others is caused through misuse or error.
>
>In your "puppy" example, the error is so non-standard that it's hard for
>me to accept it is even marginally acceptable. I think that's because,
>as you indicate, the 'which' is not behaving at all like 'this' would.
>However, some of the other examples given in this thread have dealt with
>'which' has a subject function, rather than direct object (as in your
>'puppy' sentence). It's hard for us to judge now that we're so
>conscious of this issue, but I'd guess that a sentence like A is more
>acceptable than B (forget the sentence-ending preposition though!):
>
>A. The puppy chewed up your slippers. _Which_ was something I warned
>you about.
>B. The puppy chewed up your slippers. _Which_ I warned you would
>happen.
>
>IMO, the 1st example is still an error but is taking on characteristics
>of a 'normal' sentence because 'which' has a subject (rather than DO)
>function, creating a statement that approximates a standard sentence.
>
>Larry
>
>
>
>
>>>>[log in to unmask] 09/28/04 7:33 PM >>>
>>>>
>>>>
>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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