Timeline for Weird "genitive of relative pronoun" construction
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
11 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jan 27, 2015 at 11:53 | vote | accept | Emanuel | ||
| Jan 27, 2015 at 2:57 | history | edited | tchrist♦ | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Jan 27, 2015 at 2:55 | answer | added | tchrist♦ | timeline score: 5 | |
| Jan 26, 2015 at 16:38 | comment | added | John Lawler | Certainly it's the pied piping that's the source of the oddity. It does have a lot of strange extrusions, and I think the answer to the OQ is that native English speakers differ about how they process that -- some have more problems than others, apparently. I wouldn't write it, and I hope I'd never corner myself into emitting something like it in speech. So that's a "problem", I think. | |
| Jan 26, 2015 at 16:32 | comment | added | Greg Lee | It's not grammatical. The easiest way to fix it: "... another verb, which I've already talked about the present tense of". (I agree with John's analysis, but I just don't think it's any good with the pied piping.) (GEdgar's version is good too, and better in a formal style.) | |
| Jan 26, 2015 at 16:29 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | @John: To me, it's only a tiny bit "laboured". The pied piping/reordering aspect is common even in conversational English, and certainly shouldn't be taxing for the audience in what I assume is an "information-dense" context (where every word counts, and the audience are expected to be competent speakers who are paying close attention). The main thing that gets me is the unwanted correspondence between of which and talked of (which isn't entirely masked by using talked about). I might prefer to "improve" it with in respect of which... | |
| Jan 26, 2015 at 16:08 | comment | added | John Lawler |
It's grammatical, if a bit labored. It's pied piping of another verb in forming a nonrestrictive relative clause from I've already talked about the present tense of another verb. The unspecified another verb nonterminal becomes which in forming the relative clause, and the distribution of the prepositions is precisely as specified by the rules of relative formation.
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| Jan 26, 2015 at 16:08 | comment | added | Edwin Ashworth | The alternative form I've already talked about the present tense of another verb, ... uses stacked prepositional phrases (or one and a MWV) with no problem. I'm not sure that there's a grammatical rule 564 subsection 11 subsubsection d dealing with the acceptability of your alternative, but it's clumsy, and not all that easy to process. I'd rephrase. GEdgar's suggestion to use a relative clause beginning with whose is excellent. Emanuel's suggestion to use the single-word equivalent discuss is excellent. | |
| Jan 26, 2015 at 15:33 | comment | added | Emanuel | @GEdgar... just thought how I'd do it in German and that lead me to "the present tense of which I have already discussed" | |
| Jan 26, 2015 at 15:31 | comment | added | GEdgar | I wonder if there is any really good way to say this. Maybe: "...another verb, whose present tense I have already talked about" | |
| Jan 26, 2015 at 15:28 | history | asked | Emanuel | CC BY-SA 3.0 |