Re: "Difficult" clauses

MorphemeAddict@WMCONNECT.COM wrote:
> In a message dated 5/12/2007 9:29:58 PM Central Daylight Time, hmiller@IO.COM
> writes:
>
>
>>> "We spent all night talking about something I don't remember what it
>>> was" doesn't sound right to me.  Shouldn't there be something
>>> after "something": "and," a period, a semicolon?
>> Not a pause, but you can add an implicit "that" after "something".
>>
>>
>
> Any of the three options "and", period, or semicolon would work fine, since
> it's essentially two independent clauses.
> Adding explicit "that" is wrong, though, because "that" would be the direct
> object of "I don't remember", but there is already an explicit direct object:
> "what it was".
Well, it sounds wrong to leave out the "it" (*something [that] I don't
remember what ... was"). The main idea could be hinted at by leaving out
the "what it was" and just saying "talking about something I don't
remember".

Basically the original sentences seem to be trying to glue two ideas
together, with questionable results:

We spent all night talking.
I can't remember what we spent all night talking about.
? We spent all night talking about I can't remember what.

She bought cheese.
I lost count of how many kinds of cheese she bought.
? She bought I lost count how many kinds of cheese.

Other ways of gluing these ideas together also seem to have questionable
results, but some might work better for some languages than others.
Maybe just shifting the emphasis could work better for some languages
(including English for that matter): "What we spent all night talking
about I can't remember".

> If "that" *is* added, then "what it was" should be left out or put in its own
> clause somehow.
>
> Adding an *implicit* "that" is pointless, if not absurd.  If it's implied,
> who's to say that it's been added at all?
Is it really any worse than "talking about I can't remember what"? If
your language can't handle "talking about I can't remember what"
directly, you need a different way to express it. "Talking about
something I can't remember" seems like a reasonable alternative.

Certainly there must be languages that don't have a construction like
"talking about I can't remember what"; just because this is marginally
comprehensible in English doesn't mean that other languages need to
imitate the exact syntax.