Re: Subordinate clauses

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Cowan" <cowan@...>

Karsten Becker:
>>
In English you wouldn't say "the dog with the man was green" either, "the
dog who was with the man was green" would be a valid possibility of course.
<<

AARGH!  :)

John Cowan:
> I don't have any problem with "The dog with the man was green"; it has
> to be about the dog, and it sounds perfectly idiomatic.  OTOH, maybe
> I've been thinking about green men and dogs for too long.
LOL!  No you haven't.  You know your native language.  I have a green man on
the front of my house.  I got him from Art and Artifacts for about forty
bucks; he's made out of green cement, and he has leaves for hair and
whiskers.  He's supposed to watch over the garden.  We had to get the
painters, who were painting the house a kind of mocha-lilac, quite the
opposite of green as a matter of fact, to put him up underneath the little
central upstairs closet window.  It's just his face, but he snarls
benevolently down on the front yard.  Now when I say in perfectly good
English "the man on my house is green," there can only be one item that is
green, and that's not the house.

Sally