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Jawel Posted 8 years ago
Grammar

A relative clause position

Hello my friends, I hope that you had a great day!

Actually, I get confused a bit because I am not sure where to put a relative clause in the following sentences.

The first question:

1-) I bought a car from a car shop which I had been looking for.

or

2-) I bought a car which I had been looking for from a car shop.

I think, 2 is correct but separating a sentence from its middle is not preferred in English. Because It causes the sentence to be confusing. As the best option I am thinking of putting "from a car shop in Italy" at the beginning like:

3-) From a car shop, I bought a car which I had been looking for.


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The second question:

1-) I saw some books at the library that have lots of mystery.

2-) I saw some books that have lots of mystery at the library.

The first one can mean "the library have lots of mysery" and the second one "books have lots of mystery at the library" but actually "at the library" doesn't belong to the relative clause. Both of them seem problematic.


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The third question:

1-) There is a dog in front of the building which I have seen before.

2-) There is a dog which I have seen before in front of the building.

The same problem again. What do you think?



  

Top answer

Question 2 #1 is not correct. #2 is fine and natural English. ) #3 is not natural.

— Clive

  • Question 2 #1 is not correct.
  • #2 is fine and natural English.
  • ) #3 is not natural.
  • Question 2 #1 sounds natural, and would not confuse a native speaker.
  • (grin) #2 is fine.
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3 Answers
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Question 2

#1 is not correct.

#2 is fine and natural English. (We say 'a car dealer', not 'a car shop'.)

#3 is not natural.

Question 2

#1 sounds natural, and would not confuse a native speaker. I've never encountered a library that had a lots of mystery.(grin)

#2 is fine.

Question3

#1 does not work,

#2 is fine.

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Jawelseparating a sentence from in [its/the] middle is not preferred in English

But the separation which is objectionable occurs between a verb and its object.

I bought a car which I had been looking for from a car dealership. (OK)
I bought

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If I wanted to say

I bought a car which ( I had been looking for from a car shop ).

I would say it another way. eg I finally bought an Audi 1234. I'd been looking for 6 months for a dealer who had this model.


Most of the time we shouldn't prefer dividing the sentence from its middle, right? That becomes more true as the length of t

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