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Anonymous Posted 18 years ago
Grammar

Using "that" pronoun

0I will illustrate my problem with an example: "There are van der Waals' forces between chains that are weaker forces in LDPE."02br
00Does the pronoun "that" relate to the word "forces", "chains" or "van der Waals' forces between chains"? 02br
00Please, help me! 0-
  

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5 Answers
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0It says it all you wanted to know02br
02br
00"There are van der Waals' forces between chains that are weaker 01b00forces02b00 in LDPE."02br
02br
00that are weaker forces = 01b01u00they02u02b00 are weaker 01b01u00forces02u02b02br
02br
00(LDPE
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0So there is no rules that the pronoun "that" would relate to the last word? 0-
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0Often, the "that" will relate to the most recent word, but logic has to be used sometimes too.02br
02br
00It's not elegant English, but if I said "I wore my hat to the party that I got in Mexico" do you think I got the party in Mexico, or the hat? 02br
02br
00I parked in the lot next to the school that has the best lighting. The LOT has the best lighting,
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0 In order to be precise, you should always try to rephrase your sentence if "that" does not follow the object it really refers to.02br
00If that does not folllow the object replacing "that" with "the one that" or with "which"... can suggest that the closest object is not related to the phrase.02br
02br
00"I opened a can on the table that was closest to me."02b
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0I would suggest the solution to your "can" issue is more simple than that: I opened the can that was closest to me on the table.0-
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