Karl,
Murray, who's late-eighteenth century rather than nineteenth (my goof!)
referred to 'what' at the beginning of putatively nominal clauses as a
"compound relative" equivalent to "that which." A number of American
19th-century grammars I've looked at used the same term (Kirkham 1824
and Greene 1854 being good examples). Given Murray's influence, it's
quite possible (well, almost certain, but hard to prove) that the later
American writers got the idea from him. I don't know, however, if Murray
invented that analysis or got it from someone earlier.
Bill Spruiell
Dept. of English
Central Michigan University
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Karl Hagen
Sent: Wednesday, November 17, 2004 3:13 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: I need help with a phrase
Don't relegate (4) to the history bin. That's more or less the
interpretation that Huddleston and Pullum adopt in CGEL. Although that
really concerns the internal structure of the clause rather than its
function in the matrix. I don't think it's necessarily inconsistent with
any of the first three positions.
As a general matter, I'm curious about the 19th-century antecedents.
Which grammarians promoted that?
"I'm wondering something" provokes a question: I can think of other ways
to use different pronouns in the same place (e.g., "I'm wondering it
too.") But it seems unusual for a verb to select an NP complement that
only allows a pronoun. Are there instances verbs (apart from those that
typically are followed by clauses) that only allow pronoun direct
objects and not NPs headed by a lexical noun?
Karl
Karl Hagen
Department of English
Mount St. Mary's College
Spruiell, William C wrote:
>If I've understood correctly, so far there have been at least three
>analyses for wh-clauses (I'm trying to use that as a neutral term)
after
>verbs like "wonder" (and apologies ahead of time if I've misconstrued
>something):
>
>(1) It's a nominal clause. (Martha Kolln's position)
>
>(2) It's a headless relative, in this case acting as object of
>elided prep. (Bruce Despain's position)
>
>(3) It's a kind of complement clause distinct from constituents
that
>can be direct objects. (Karl Hagen's position)
>
>For the sake of trivia-obsessed completeness, I'll add a fourth that I
>ran across in some 19th-century sources:
>
>(4) The wh-pronoun at the beginning of these clauses acts both as a
>relativizer and as its own head. (I'm viewing that as distinct from
> "headless," perhaps erroneously).
>
>
>There are two pieces of "distribution data" that might be relevant
here,
>but I'm not sure how to factor them in:
>
>(1) "What" can occur as the wh-form only if the clause is not acting
>adjectivally, e.g. as a typical relative clause (at least, not in
>standard English):
>
> I know what we're having for dinner.
> The food that/which we ate for dinner was quite good.
> *The food what we ate for dinner was quite good.
>
>(2) Forms with "-ever" can only occur in the "nominalesque" forms,
>although they can't occur in all such forms:
>
> *The food whichever we ate for dinner was quite good.
> You can have whatever you want.
> *I'm wondering whatever that is.
>
>I view the distribution of "what" as sufficient grounds to consider
>these clauses as not being relative clauses, at least in the
traditional
>sense, but that's more an issue of labeling than anything else (they
>could simply be an odd subclass of relatives, if I wanted to extend the
>definition of relatives). Distribution of -ever forms is obviously
>affected by the meaning being expressed, but I'm not sure meaning alone
>rules out their prohibition in "traditional" relative clauses.
>
>I'm not writing this to propose a solution -- I'm just interested in
how
>this fits into the different analyses. Kolln's distinction between
>nominal wh-clauses and relative clauses deals with the distributions
>nicely, but there remain all the other similarities between the two
>types that push toward a view of them as being the same in some sense.
>
>As a side note: I can say "I'm wondering something" as a conversation
>opener with a friend (e.g. walk up with a quizzical expression and say
>the sentence to get the hearer to say, "O.k., what are you
wondering?").
>I don't know if that's because I'm Southern or because I've screwed up
>my neural circuits by thinking about language too much -- but
>"something" is an NP.
>
>Bill Spruiell
>
>Dept. of English
>Central Michigan University
>
>
>
>
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>
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