Trough what

Question

"Sanders condemns those aspects of Trump, but is reluctant to characterise millions of white, working-class voters as racists, through what I suspect is political pragmatism and deep sentiment, given his own background is white working class." (The Guardian.)

Is the clause "what I suspect is political pragmatism and deep sentiment" the object of the preposition "through" in the sentence above?

Is the pronoun "what" a direct object of the verb "suspect" in that clause?

Is "Sanders condemns those aspects of Trump, but is reluctant to characterise millions of white, working-class voters as racists, the antecedent of "what" in that sentence?

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

AnonymousIs the clause "what I suspect is political pragmatism and deep sentiment" the object of the preposition "through" in the sentence above?

Yes.

AnonymousIs the pronoun "what" a direct object of the verb "suspect" in that clause?

Not just "what". Actually the whole clause you asked about in your previous question is the object.

AnonymousIs "Sanders condemns those aspects of Trump, but is reluctant to characterise millions of white, working-class voters as racists, the antecedent of "what" in that sentence?

No. "what" is a fused relative. It fuses "that" and "which" ("that which") into one word ("what"), so the antecedent ("that") and the relative pronoun ("which") are both in the same word ("what").

... through that (= the thing) which (I suspect) is political pragmatism and deep sentiment.
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This little grammatical pattern occurs enough to cause problems for learners. It's a way of introducing some subtlety and complexity into a simple phrase by putting it into a fused relative clause.

through pragmatism
through what is pragmatism ~ through that thing which is pragmatism
through what is pragmatism (I suspect that it is pragmatism, anyway.) (Adding a writer's comment.)
through what I suspect is pragmatism
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You may want to study how the same structure applies to the following phrases.

because of prejudice > because of what we call prejudice
shot at cardboard targets > shot at what he insisted were cardboard targets
found in a baby carriage > found in what the witnesses described as a baby carriage

CJ

Anonymous · Answer

Thank you, CJ, for the reply, especially for the clarity of your analysis.

Trough what

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