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Deepcosmos Posted 4 years ago
Grammar

What's ‘that’ you were saying earlier?

Hello, everyone,

1. “What's that you say?“ (idiomatic expression to mean ‘Have I heard you correctly?’)

2. “What’s that you’re holding?” (used for referring to something that the person you are talking to is holding or wearing, excerpted from Macmillan dictionary)

3. “What's that you were saying earlier?” (excerpt from our local material)

If three sentences above have the same pattern in common, I guess the that above is functioning not as a demonstrative pronoun leading a demonstrative-cleft construction, but a preceding pronoun restricted by a relative ‘which’ clause (with the objective ‘which’ omitted). If so, I wonder how the demonstrative pronoun ‘that’ could be restricted by a relative ‘which’. Is this case similar to the exceptional usage of ‘those who’ in “Those who saw the performance thought it memorable.”?

I would appreciate it if you kindly explain the function of three ‘that’ above, especially the ‘that’ in 3.

  

Top answer

deepcosmos I guess the that above is functioning not as a demonstrative pronoun Right. " Same thing. ”?

— Anonymous

  • deepcosmos I guess the that above is functioning not as a demonstrative pronoun Right.
  • " Same thing.
  • ”?
  • I see nothing exceptional.
  • "Those" is another plain pronoun.
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1 Answers
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deepcosmosI guess the that above is functioning not as a demonstrative pronoun

Right. It's a garden variety pronoun, the one you see in "What is that?" Look at "Who is she?" Same thing.

deepcosmosIs this case similar to the exceptional usage of ‘those who’ in “Those who saw the performance thought it memorable.”?

I

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