Reduceing clauses to phrases

Question

Hello! Please help me figure out the meaning of the sentences. Thanks a lot!

1. The chair that is made out of wood is new = The chair made out of wood is new.

(( There's at a least one other chair, which is not made out of wood. It is probably not new.))

2. My chair, which is made out of wood, is new = My chair, made out of wood, is new.

(( I only have one chair, It's made out of wood, and new))

Q1, how do I tell there is at least one other chair or I only have one chair between the 2 sentences?

Pieanne · Accepted Answer

Hello, Lynn, welcome to the Forums!

The way you understand the sentences is quite correct. I'm afraid I don't get your question?

Davkett · Answer

Hi Lynne,

I believe this is a question related to the use of 'that' versus the use of 'which'.

Check this out, and see if it answers your question: http://www.gu.edu.au/centre/gupsa/eir/content_which_or_that.html

and: http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/which.htm

Paco2004 · Answer

Hello Lynn

I would shorten your original sentences this way:
[1] Among my chairs, the wooden one is new.
[2] My chair is made of wood and new.
paco

Davkett · Answer

The two clauses here are:

1) that is made out of wood

2) which is made out of wood

1) The only chair that is new is the one made out of wood. (There could be other chairs around, but they are neither new nor made of wood.)

2) My chair is new, and it happens to be made of wood. (There could be other chairs around, but they don't belong to you. Some of them could also be made of wood..)

Davkett · Answer

I have to correct errors in my previous post.

1) The chair that is made of wood is new: implies that there are other chairs around, but they are not made of wood. Some of those other chairs could be new. The red plastic one, for instance.

2) My chair is new, and it happens to be made of wood: means there could be other chairs around, but they do not belong to you. All of them might even be made of wood, and all of them might be new.

Davkett · Answer

One more thought:

If the sentences were written this way--

1) The chair that is made of wood is new. = (same meaning as above)

2) The chair, which is made of wood, is new. = (There are probably not other chairs around.)

Miriam · Answer

Hello, Lynn.

Your email surprised me greatly because I had almost forgotten about these Forums. I had my password emailed to me only a while ago because I could not remember it!

Thank you very much for your kind words; I am glad to hear you have found my posts helpful.

I wanted to send you an email through the forums but, for some reason, the email option would not work for me.

I have read your post several times and would like to offer some help here too but, like some of the other people who have posted to this thread, I am not sure I understand your question. Would you post again and clarify it a bit?

What I can tell you so far is that your sentences are correct. Now, if what is worrying you is the number of chairs you have, in the first sentence you do not mention possession, so it is not possible to know ~~just from reading an isolated sentence~~ who owns the wooden chair. In the second sentence it seems that you have only one chair, and that is it made out of wood and it is new. If you want to know if there is a way to say that you have two chairs or more, but that only one of them is new (the one made out of wood), you do not even need a clause or a reduced clause, and it would be easier to say, for example: “my wooden chair is new”, as opposed to "my other chairs, the ones not made out of wood, are not new". All I did was replace “made out of wood” with “wooden”, and it sounds more natural. Since an adjective (wooden) exists that can be used in that sentence, a longer construction (a clause or phrase) is not necessary IF you want to say that the one made out of wood is not the only chair you own.

This has to do with the idea of “permanence” of the quality an adjective expresses and also with the place the adjective (or adjectival construction) occupies in a sentence. Anyway, before I type a longer explanation here that might have nothing to do with your question, please post again and let me know if this is close to what you asked?

Regards,

Miriam

Reduceing clauses to phrases

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