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I have a sentence: "Whatever scant motivation she had for talking to this moving wreck of a man died away entirely."

Is it correct to place "she had" before "for talking to this..."?

Initially, I placed it after, so the sentence was like: "Whatever scant motivation for talking to this moving wreck of a man she had died away entirely."

But it seemed to me, that "she had" and "died away" were weird neighbours. Please explain.

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    To answer the first question, "correct" doesn't mean anything in this context, but yes, it's grammatical. You're also right that this is a better placement for she had; a major reason is that she had is a reduced relative clause, but only two syllables, so it has to be placed away from the other 2-syllable constituent, died away, since they're both crucial. The sentence is overcomplex -- if you find yourself worried about grammar, write a simpler sentence, e.g, Her already scant motivation for talking to this wreck of a man died away entirely.
    – John Lawler
    Commented Nov 24, 2017 at 19:14
  • Yes, it seems fine to me. "Whatever scant motivation" is object of "had" in the relative clause: "she had ___ for talking ... ." There is a good reason for not changing things: the determiner "whatever" implies a relatively small amount or quantity. In your example it reinforces "scant" -- this may be an important point in the dialogue.
    – BillJ
    Commented Nov 24, 2017 at 20:02
  • Despite that fact moving wreck seems strange, I have no idea why either might be preferable. What's a moving wreck, please?
    – Robbie Goodwin
    Commented Nov 24, 2017 at 21:36
  • "she had died away ..." is a garden-path construction here.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Nov 25, 2017 at 0:35
  • I was thinking it's a wreck that is able to move. Wreck is showing how ruined the man is. What's strange here?
    – Toto
    Commented Nov 25, 2017 at 7:08

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In a comment, John Lawler wrote:

To answer the first question, "correct" doesn't mean anything in this context, but yes, it's grammatical. You're also right that this is a better placement for she had; a major reason is that she had is a reduced relative clause, but only two syllables, so it has to be placed away from the other 2-syllable constituent, died away, since they're both crucial. The sentence is overcomplex -- if you find yourself worried about grammar, write a simpler sentence, e.g, Her already scant motivation for talking to this wreck of a man died away entirely.

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"she had" is a reduced relative clause (for "that she had"), restricting the noun 'motivation' in the subject noun phrase. Since that noun phrase contains (three!) prepositional phrases, putting the relative clause after any of the prepositional object nouns would confuse the reader.

(It has nothing to do with the size of any phrases.)

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