Structure Of "With Which Clause"

Question

This dictionary is a good source on word frequency. It also gives information about the grammatical framework
that particular words tend to inhabit, and with which other words they usually combine. This can be helpful in creating sentence structures that readers will be familiar with.

In underlined sentence, all I know for sure is that with is licensed by combine ('combine with something'). Could you tell me which means what and they denotes what?

Cool Breeze · Accepted Answer

The passgage was not written by a native speaker and many parts of it are ungrammatical, including the underlined part. Thus there is no point in analysing it.

CB

CalifJim · Answer

anonymousand with which other words they usually combine

Compare:

and with [which other words] they usually combine
and [which other words] they usually combine with
Which other words do they usually combine with?

and for [which other position] he applied
and [which other position] he applied for
Which other position did he apply for?

and on [which other person] she relied
and [which other person] she relied on
Which other person did she rely on?

The bracketed which-phrases are all parts of indirect questions. The direct question form is listed last in each group.

Don't confuse this construction with the preposition-plus-relative-pronoun construction: the words with which they combine; the position for which he applied; the person on whom she relied.

CJ

'particular words' is the antecedent of 'they', by the way.

anonymousinformation
about [the grammatical framework that particular words tend to inhabit,]
and
(about) [with which other words they usually combine].

The higher level structure is somewhat deformed by the fact that there is a second implicit 'about' in there which goes very awkwardly with the rest of the sentence. It might have been better to write

information about ... words ... and which other words they usually combine with.

CJ

Structure Of "With Which Clause"

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