Clause

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Hi,Would you please tell me, is it true to leave "from whom" and "that" out of the following sentences.1-A woman from whom you rent a room.2-Jim was wearing a hat that was too big for him.

Inchoateknowledge · Accepted Answer

ItmanHi,
Would you please tell me, is it true to leave "from whom" and "that" out of the following sentences.
1-A woman from whom you rent a room.
2-Jim was wearing a hat that was too big for him.

you cannot ellipt the pronouns here.
The reference is not clear without them contextually.

Itman · Answer

Hi Inchoateknowledge,
But I read if "that" or "whom" are object we are allowed to omit them.Isn't it?

Itman · Answer

ItmanHi Inchoateknowledge,
But I read if "that" or "whom" are object we are allowed to omit them.Isn't it?

Would you please answer my question.

Inchoateknowledge · Answer

Hi

You cannot omit syntactical units to the detriment of coherence; only when it is easy to recover the ellipted part from the text can you do so.
Your first and second sentences can not be ellipted.

"1-A woman ... you rent a room." Does it make sense? You can not discover the relationship between the woman and the room you rent from the text. Roger?
"2-Jim was wearing a hat ... was too big for him." Incoherent

I got the letter (that) she wrote me. Here you can drop the relative pronoun.

Nader75 · Answer

I think :

- A woman who you rent a room

or A woman that you rent a room

or A woman you rent a room

A woman is the object .... you is the subject .... so if you said :

the woman who/that lives in ....

you cant leav out who or that ..so you can't said : the woman lives .. incorrect ... because the woman is the subject

- the hat jim was too big for him ... or ... the hat which/that jim was wearing was too big for him

or .... the hat jim was wearing was too big for him

Nader75 · Answer

by the way you can't said A woman you must to said The woman

because you specific the woman

Inchoateknowledge · Answer

"by the way you can't said A woman you must to said The woman"
not necessarily

A woman from whom you rent a house.

She is one of the several women from whom you rent a house.

Marius Hancu · Answer

Nader75I think :

- A woman who you rent a room

or A woman that you rent a room

or A woman you rent a room

No, you're wrong. They are not equivalent with:

A woman from whom you rent a room.

First of all, none of your versions are correct in any sense. From must be there in order for the sentence to show clearly who is giving whom the room.

If you don't use from, the choice to correct your sentences would be to:

- A woman whom you rent a room to.

or A woman that you rent a room to.
or A woman you rent a room to.

but then, the meaning is totally reversed (she's getting the room and you're giving /renting it to her).

CalifJim · Answer

Would you please tell me, is it ~~true~~ correct to leave "from whom" and "that" out of the following sentences.
1-A woman from whom you rent a room.
2-Jim was wearing a hat that was too big for him.

Let's take the second sentence first.
Jim was wearing a hat that was too big for him. (Subject underlined. Relative connection in bold.)

This comes from:
Jim was wearing a hat. The hat was too big for him. (Subject underlined. Relative connection in bold.)

that is the subject of the clause that was too big for him. It is not correct to leave out a relative pronoun (that) when that relative pronoun is the subject of the clause it is in.

So in this case, no, you cannot correctly leave out that.

_______

Now let's take the first example. It is not a sentence. Let's change it a little and make it a sentence first. That may make things easier.

Mrs. Bruggle is the woman from whom you rent a room. (Subject underlined. Relative connection in bold.)

This comes from:

Mrs. Bruggle is the woman. You rent a room from that woman. (Subject underlined. Relative connection in bold.)

Here you see that the subject (underlined) of the secondary clause and the words that are connected into a relative construction (in bold) are not the same, so you have a choice.

After you substitute whom for that woman, to produce:

1) Mrs. Bruggle is the woman. *You rent a room from whom.

you must notice that whom is part of a prepositional phrase from whom.

You may move the entire prepositional phrase to the beginning of the secondary clause, to form:

1A) Mrs. Bruggle is the woman from whom you rent a room.

OR, if you want to leave out whom, you just leave it out at the end, and do not move the preposition from. Leave it at the end.

1B) Mrs. Bruggle is the woman you rent a room from.

Both 1A and 1B are correct. Both are derived from 1), which is not correct, but is a necessary step to illustrate the two possible derivations.

If you move the entire prepositional phrase first, and then leave out whom, you will make an incorrect sentence! *Mrs. Bruggle is the woman from you rent a room.

CJ

Itman · Answer

Thanks a lot CJ.Your answer was so vivid as usual.
By the way,I appretiate you owing to making me aware of my mistakes.

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