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Re: Mandarin Relative Clauses?

From:SMITH,MARCUS ANTHONY <smithma@...>
Date:Friday, December 22, 2000, 19:17
On Fri, 22 Dec 2000, John Cowan wrote:

> SMITH,MARCUS ANTHONY wrote: > > > Frankly, I don't believe that this sentence is an example of extraposition > > due to a heavy relative clause. I think instead that it is a necessity of > > copular sentences. Note that the "light" relative you used before also > > cannot function as the subject of a copular sentence. > > > > *Who doesn't work is a lazy person. > > Whoever doesn't work is a lazy person. > > > > *Who sings well is a talented person. > > Whoever sings well is a talented person. > > Granted. But: > > What you see is what you get. > Whatever you see is what you get. > > When you fall 50 m, you are dead. > Whenever you fall 50 m, you are dead.
This last pair is a different situation altogether, since the "when" clause is a temporal adjunct rather than an argument.
> These *are* semantically different, but both members of each pair > are grammatical. So it is "who" that is different, not just > copulatives.
The difference, once again, lies in the fact that "who" requires a restrictor, while "what" does not. You can see this reflected in the fact that "who" can serve as a relative pronoun while "what" cannot. I saw the man who followed you home. *I saw the dog what followed you home. The proper form of that last sentence would be I saw the dog that followed you home. Compare that with *That followed you home is a stray dog. It is a stray dog that followed you home. This is the same pattern as "who". I doubt that this is a coincidence. Marcus