Dick,
I'm saying that the verb has a zero subject. Many speakers find such sentences acceptable in speech, as in "There's the guy met me at the airport." Whether one accepts such a spoken sentence or not, it does have a zero subject. So in that-relatives, the co-indexed noun in the RC deletes. In those cases where deletion is prevented by other factors, as with possessives or fronted PPs that-relatives aren't allowed and wh-rels get used. For many speakers those positions that don't allow deletion show up with resumptive pronouns, as in "The guy that I talked to his brother yesterday lives in Indianapolis."
Herb
Herbert F. W. Stahlke, Ph.D.
Emeritus Professor of English
Ball State University
Muncie, IN 47306
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________________________________________
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Veit, Richard [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: January 18, 2009 10:50 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Pedants that or who?
Herb,
I know you have made this case, but I'd like to hear more. In "the dog who barked," who is a pronoun and the subject of the relative clause. Are you saying that, in "the dog that barked," the verb barked has no subject? Or are you saying that a conjunction can be the subject? Or something else entirely?
Dick
________________________________________
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of STAHLKE, HERBERT F [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Saturday, January 17, 2009 4:11 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Pedants that or who?
We've discussed that vs. who at great length on this list, and I've made the argument, based on grammarians like Jespersen and Huddleston&Pullum, that the claim of a distinction of humanness is false. Relative-that is not a pronoun; it's a subordinating conjunction, the same as it is with noun clauses. Because it isn't a pronoun, it can't agree grammatically. Conjunctions in English don't. "Who," on the other hand, is a pronoun with human reference. The "that" form goes back to Old English. The "wh-" forms in their modern form arise in Middle English after the 13th c.
Herb
Herbert F. W. Stahlke, Ph.D.
Emeritus Professor of English
Ball State University
Muncie, IN 47306
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