Is "That" A Relative Pronoun?

Question

Confucius advocates dying for a cause of benevolence. While Mencius advocates dying for a cause of justice. It's only because justice is deleted that benevolence follow.

Does 'that clause' as a relative clause modify justice?

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

anonymousDoes the 'that clause' act as a relative clause to modify justice?

No. That's a cleft construction. The underlying sentence is

Benevolence follows only because justice is deleted.*

The highlighted element is

[only because justice is deleted].

Once you select an element of a sentence to highlight, you create the corresponding cleft construction by placing the highlighted element between It is and that. The rest of the sentence then comes at the end.

It is [only because justice is deleted] that benevolence follows.

benevolence follows does not refine the idea of what kind of justice is meant, so there is no modification of justice happening here.

CJ

*I'm ignoring the fact that 'deleted' is a strange word choice. We expect 'denied' in that context.

Is "That" A Relative Pronoun?

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