Relative pronoun

Question

"The purest water is that produced by distillation."
Is this sentence correct ?
Shouldn't it be "The purest water is that which is produced by distillation." or "The purest water is the one produced by distillation" ?

BarbaraPA · Accepted Answer

No, it's fine. That is a pronoun referring to water.

The purest water is the water that is produced by distillation.
Replace the underlined part with "that" and omit the italicized part.

Water is not a countable noun, so you can't use "one."
I would not use "which" there, because it's restrictive, so I'd use "that." And then you'd have "is that that is," which is okay, but awkward, and a good reason to omit it.

Debpriya De · Answer

I get it now, thanks.

BillJ · Answer

Debpriya De (i) "The purest water is that produced by distillation."
Is this sentence correct ?
Shouldn't it be (ii) "The purest water is that which is produced by distillation." or (iii) "The purest water is the one produced by distillation" ?

No, all three are perfectly correct - they are just different ways of saying the same thing. If you replace the pro-forms "that" and "one" with "water", you can see that they all make sense and convey the same meaning. Example (i) is obviously the most succinct, while (ii) seems a little clumsy. Personally, I prefer (iii).

You used the term "Relative pronoun" for the title of your question, but strictly speaking only (ii) actually contains a relative clause ("which" is the relative pronoun), though (i) and (iii), which use non-finite participial clauses, are essentially equivalent in meaning to the finite relative clause in (ii).

BillJ

Cool Breeze · Answer

Grammar GeekWater is not a countable noun, so you can't use "one."

I concur. - CB

Relative pronoun

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