What aids there were to?
What aids there were to lighten labor were immemorial, like the mill, which was already ancient in Chaucer’ s time.
Hi, dear teachers. I am wondering how I should understand the underlined part grammar-wise. Could you parse it? I know "what" is for "whatever" and "aids" is for machine, right?
Thank you.
Top answer
What aids there were to lighten labor were immemorial, like the mill, which was already ancient in Chaucer’ s time . This is a fused relative construction where the fusion involves what aids . On the one hand, "what" is determiner and "aids" is head of the NP functioning as subject of "were immemorial".
- What aids there were to lighten labor were immemorial, like the mill, which was already ancient in Chaucer’ s time .
- This is a fused relative construction where the fusion involves what aids .
- On the one hand, "what" is determiner and "aids" is head of the NP functioning as subject of "were immemorial".
- On the other hand, "what aids" is complement of "were" in the relative clause.
- Aids thus has a role in both the subordinate clause and the matrix clause: we understand that there were aids to lighten labor, but they were immemorial.
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What aids there were to lighten labor were immemorial, like the mill, which was already ancient in Chaucer’ s time.
This is a fused relative construction where the fusion involves what aids. On the one hand, "what" is determiner and "aids" is head of the NP functioning as subject of "were immemorial". On the other hand, "what aids" is complement of "were" in the rela
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