Prepositional phrase..

Question

Consider this sentence:Budding markets for spurious products that are bringing unethical people together, are huring the economy.My colleague says that 'that' above cannot modify "supurious products", since "for spurious products" is a prepositional phrase.Is this some grammatical rule? If so, then how about this:I have a strong message for people who are trying to subvert the law.Isn't this a correct sentence? I would think that in this, 'people' is in prepositional phrase 'for people' but still, 'that' is modifying people.Please clarify.Thanks,Bharosey.

BillJ · Accepted Answer

rambharoseyBudding markets for spurious products that are bringing unethical people together, are huring the economy.

My colleague says that 'that' above cannot modify "supurious products", since "for spurious products" is a prepositional phrase.

Is this some grammatical rule?

No, there's no grammatical rule. To be clear, "that" is not a modifier, it's a subordinator (acting like a kind of relative word) that introduces the relative clause "that are bringing unethical people together" which is modifying the noun phrase "spurious products". It doesn't matter that the noun phrase "spurious products" is the complement of a preposition (for) - it's a typical pattern. Incidentally, you don't need the comma after "together".

rambharoseyIf so, then how about this:

I have a strong message for people who are trying to subvert the law.

Isn't this a correct sentence? I would think that in this, 'people' is in prepositional phrase 'for people' but still, 'that' is modifying people.

Yes, it is perfectly OK. The relative clause "who are trying to subvert the law" is modifying the noun "people". Again, it doesn't matter at all that "people" is the complement of the preposition "for".

BillJ

Englishmaven · Answer

Bill is correct. He is on the money.

Prepositional phrase..

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