Reduced relative clause

Question

Hi,I've been analyzing a Whitney Houston article from the New York Times.  I find that I still have a long way to go in terms of the mastery of English grammar.Her death came as the music industry descended on Los Angeles for the annual celebration of the http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/g/grammy_awards/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier, and Ms. Houston was — for all her difficulties over the years — one of its queens. She was staying at the Beverly Hilton hotel on Saturday to attend a pre-Grammy party being hosted by Clive Davis, the founder of Arista Records, who had been her pop mentor.Q1) As far as I know, the underlined part is a reduced relative clause.  Correct?When I try to extend it to a full version of a relative clause, I encounter two difficulties.  First, it is unclear whether it is a reduced form of a restrictive relative clause or an unrestrictive relative clause. Q2) How do you know which one it is? Secondly, aspectuality of the participle clause is ambiguous.  It could denote any of the following:A: ...  a pre-Grammy party which was being hosted by Clive Davis...B: .... a pre-Grammy party which was hosted by Clive Davis...She was staying hotel at the time Clive Davis was hosting the party.  So "A" is the correct answer, in my opinion.  But I'm not 100% sure.Q3) Which one is the correct interpretation?I'd appreciate your help.

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

jooneyQ1) As far as I know, the underlined part is a reduced relative clause. Correct?

Correct. ... party which was being hosted ... (with the meaning was going to be hosted)

jooneyQ2) How do you know which one it is?

Interesting question. It's restrictive to my ear, but why? Hmmm. I know it can be said ... party that was being hosted ..., and that can't be used with a non-restrictive clause, so that alerts me that it's restrictive. But that displaces the question to how I know that I can use that. I'll have to think about this.

Obviously information regarding who was hosting the party restricts the meaning of a party. It was a party being hosted by Clive Davis as opposed to a party being hosted by someone else, so there's nothing parenthetical about that information. Maybe that's all you have to know to see that it's a restrictive clause.

jooneyQ3) Which one is the correct interpretation?

A. I just take them at face value. It says "being", so it must be "being". I suppose the party was in full swing at the time, so it must have been an on-going situation whether "being" was included or not in the description.

CJ

Jooney · Answer

Thank you very much for your anwers, CJ.

I have to admit my analysis was somewhat sloppy in that I overlooked that the infinitive was there.

So the party was yet to take place at the time she was staying at the hotel.

As for your anwer to question #3, your answer is based on the situation where Whitney was staying at the hotel at the time Clive Davis was hosting the party.(That is, the party had already started and was still going on while she was staying at the hotel) Right? And could you please explain in a litte more detail what you mean by this: I suppose the party was in full swing at the time, so it must have been an on-going situation whether "being" was included or not in the description.

CalifJim · Answer

jooneyAs for your anwer to question #3, your answer is based on the situation where Whitney was staying at the hotel at the time Clive Davis was hosting the party.(That is, the party had already started and was still going on while she was staying at the hotel) Right? And could you please explain in a litte more detail what you mean by this: I suppose the party was in full swing at the time, so it must have been an on-going situation whether "being" was included or not in the description.

In fact, that was a mistake. It was not an on-going situation. I wrote that part before I realized that the party had not started yet and then I didn't go back and revise my answer. Sorry about that.

She was staying ... (in order) to attend (later) a party being hosted ...

This is an analog to the use of the present continuous to indicate future time, as shown below.

Mr. Davis is hosting a party. (is hosting = is going to host)
A party is being hosted by Mr. Davis. (is being hosted = is going to be hosted) (the passive form of the same thing)

I'm not sure if this is what you wanted to know.

CJ

Jooney · Answer

I took this sentence "...a pre-Grammy party being hosted by Clive Davis." to mean that the party was an on-going event at the time Whitney was satying at the hotel, which is obviously a wrong interpretation.

The source of the misinterpretation stemed mainly from the fact that I didn't realize the infinitive was there. But what I also did wrong was to misinterpret "Clive Davis is hosting the party" as an event that expressed on-going action.

I didn't know the veb "host" couldn't be used to denote progressive aspect.

Thank you very much for the help, CJ.

CalifJim · Answer

jooneyI took this sentence "...a pre-Grammy party being hosted by Clive Davis." to mean that the party was an on-going event at the time Whitney was satying at the hotel, which is obviously a wrong interpretation.

Yes. I know. I did the same thing. This sometimes happens in longer sentences. We get focused on one thing and forget to attend to other things as well. Don't cry over it!

CJ

Reduced relative clause

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions