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Cat_tiger Posted 15 years ago
Grammar
Urgent...question about relative clause
Hi all I'm new. Sorry if I've posted in the wrong place but I really have an urge to find an answer for this question. I've visited quite a few websites but still cannot get the answer...and I hope I can get it here.
Here are two sentences:
The woman with two children is waiting. She wrote to you.
Now I need to join them together using a relative pronoun or determiner without changing the meaning. I know I should make "who wrote to you" as a relative clause to postmodify "the woman". But the problem is there are two nouns ("woman" and "children") in the subject of the first sentence. On the premise that the meaning remains unchanged, should I say
The woman with two children who wrote to you is waiting.
(But did the antecedent become ambiguous?)
or
The woman who wrote to you is waiting with two children.
(But did the emphasis of the sentence change?)
Hope someone here can help me out because I'm going to have an important test tomorrow and I know there will be something about relative clause...I'll be much more relieved if I can have a clearer concept about it before the test. Thank you very much.
Here are two sentences:
The woman with two children is waiting. She wrote to you.
Now I need to join them together using a relative pronoun or determiner without changing the meaning. I know I should make "who wrote to you" as a relative clause to postmodify "the woman". But the problem is there are two nouns ("woman" and "children") in the subject of the first sentence. On the premise that the meaning remains unchanged, should I say
The woman with two children who wrote to you is waiting.
(But did the antecedent become ambiguous?)
or
The woman who wrote to you is waiting with two children.
(But did the emphasis of the sentence change?)
Hope someone here can help me out because I'm going to have an important test tomorrow and I know there will be something about relative clause...I'll be much more relieved if I can have a clearer concept about it before the test. Thank you very much.
Top answer
The woman with two children who wrote to you is waiting. I would say it like that because the relative clause follows the noun it modifies.
- The woman with two children who wrote to you is waiting.
- I would say it like that because the relative clause follows the noun it modifies.
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7 Answers
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The woman with two children who wrote to you is waiting. I would say it like that because the relative clause follows the noun it modifies.
00
Welcome to the forum, cat_tiger. You've come to the right place.
That's a tricky question for the reasons you've ident
That's a tricky question for the reasons you've ident00
The woman who wrote to you is waiting with her two children.
This sounded great until I thought of the idea that maybe it's a woman who happens to have two children, not that they are waiting with her. The children may be elsewhere. OMG, what are we going to do with this sentence now?
This sounded great until I thought of the idea that maybe it's a woman who happens to have two children, not that they are waiting with her. The children may be elsewhere. OMG, what are we going to do with this sentence now?
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Hi,
The woman with two children is waiting. She wrote to you.
Another possibility is
The woman who has two children, and who wrote to you, is waiting.
Clive
The woman with two children is waiting. She wrote to you.
Another possibility is
The woman who has two children, and who wrote to you, is waiting.
Clive
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Mister MicawberThe two-children before-writing woman is waiting?'fess up, Mr. M.; you got this in a German-in-Ten-Lessons text.
00
Actually, my Japanese students try it on me all the tiime. They get worse:
The wearing the red dress sitting at the next table lady doesn't have a menu.
The wearing the red dress sitting at the next table lady doesn't have a menu.
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