Timeline for Grammaticality of 'that' relative clause in phrase beginning with possessive pronoun
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
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Jan 25, 2019 at 23:21 | comment | added | Pablo Bernabeu | @JasonBassford Thanks. I can see those alternative possibilities now. | |
Jan 25, 2019 at 22:18 | comment | added | Jason Bassford | But your first two examples are not of nonrestrictive relative clauses. They are restrictive relative clauses. It's not the case that a possessive pronoun necessitates something nonrestrictive, only that it's more likely. If you have multiple technicians, and I'm only able to communicate with one of them, then the restrictive use would be both appropriate and required. Which one am I talking about? Specifically, the only one of yours that I can talk to. Your first two sentences are both grammatical—just uncommonly phrased. | |
Jan 25, 2019 at 19:38 | history | edited | Pablo Bernabeu | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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Jan 25, 2019 at 19:33 | comment | added | Pablo Bernabeu | Thanks! That's a great nuance. In my eyes and ears, the first two constructions still sound ungrammatical and uncommon (especially in spoken language), regardless of the meaning. But I may well be biased by my first language. | |
Jan 25, 2019 at 19:23 | comment | added | TaliesinMerlin | I mostly agree. One wrinkle here is that some examples could use a possessive pronoun but still allow a restrictive relative clause to be used. The restrictive clause would be necessary to distinguish between several possibilities. So in this sentence ("They scrapped our project that had taken us so much effort"), if we have several projects going on, "that had taken us so much effort" would distinguish our high-cost project from other projects. That would be less likely (as Fumble Fingers notes) but grammatical. | |
Jan 25, 2019 at 18:57 | history | edited | Pablo Bernabeu | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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Jan 25, 2019 at 18:49 | history | edited | Pablo Bernabeu | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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Jan 25, 2019 at 18:44 | history | edited | Pablo Bernabeu | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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Jan 25, 2019 at 18:38 | history | answered | Pablo Bernabeu | CC BY-SA 4.0 |