Re: Mandarin Relative Clauses?

On Fri, Nov 17, 2000 at 08:23:20AM -0500, John Cowan wrote:
> On Fri, 17 Nov 2000, H. S. Teoh wrote:
[snip]
> > But the monkey wrench in all of this is that, depending on context, (2)
> > and (3) may be interchangeably used to express the same idea. So perhaps
> > it's more of a grammatical differentiation than anything else...
>
> Then it may be merely a difference between light and heavy relative
> clauses.  In English, a light relative clause can hold the subject
> slot:
>
>         Who does not work, does not eat.
>
> But a heavier relative clause needs to go to the end, with a dummy
> "it" inserted in the apparent subject slot:
>
>         It is a wise child who knows his own father.
>
> which would sound bizarre as:
>
>         *Who knows his own father is a wise child.
How does "whoever" fit into this? To me it sounds perfectly grammatical to
say "Whoever knows his own father is a wise child" (although I must admit
that it seems a bit odd semantically, since it would imply that adults who
know their own fathers are wise children).

--
Eric Christopherson / *Aiworegs Ghristobhorosyo