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Hunk Posted 20 years ago
Grammar
Which
"The draymen both climbed into the carriage to shake Mr. Norrell's hand and breath sherry fumes all over him and assure him that they would lose no time in moving everything out of the way so that he - the hero of the French Blockade - might pass. Which promise they kept and respectable people found their horses unhitched and their carriages pushed and shoved inti tanners' yards and other nasty places , or backed into dirty brick-lanes where they got stuck fast and all the varnish was scraped off; and when the draymen and their friends..."
Is there anything wrong with the usage of "Which" which I highlighted above?
"Which" is a relative pronoun used in a clause that provides additional information about the antecedent; in every cases I've seen in the past, which and its antecedent have always been placed in a single sentence (e.g. I sold the house, which I had purchased from my aunt some years ago- house and which are in the same sentence); never had I seen "which" used as a relative pronoun but was cut off from the sentence holding its antecedent such as in the preceding excerpt; so is it legitimate?
Thanks in advance.
Is there anything wrong with the usage of "Which" which I highlighted above?
"Which" is a relative pronoun used in a clause that provides additional information about the antecedent; in every cases I've seen in the past, which and its antecedent have always been placed in a single sentence (e.g. I sold the house, which I had purchased from my aunt some years ago- house and which are in the same sentence); never had I seen "which" used as a relative pronoun but was cut off from the sentence holding its antecedent such as in the preceding excerpt; so is it legitimate?
Thanks in advance.
Top answer
Hello Hunk Yes, that's fine: "which" here acts as an adjective. It relates "promise" to the "assurance" of the previous sentence. MrP
- Hello Hunk Yes, that's fine: "which" here acts as an adjective.
- It relates "promise" to the "assurance" of the previous sentence.
- MrP
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2 Answers
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Hello Hunk
Yes, that's fine: "which" here acts as an adjective. It relates "promise" to the "assurance" of the previous sentence.
MrP
Yes, that's fine: "which" here acts as an adjective. It relates "promise" to the "assurance" of the previous sentence.
MrP
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That particular use of "which" (as a substitute for "that"), together with the preposing of the direct object ("which promise", i.e., "that promise"), is, I think, a literary device, and a fairly old one at that.
I don't think this use of "which" would occur in a modern text, and the following sort of example is rare. It almost seems to be a sentence fragment, we are so used to "w
I don't think this use of "which" would occur in a modern text, and the following sort of example is rare. It almost seems to be a sentence fragment, we are so used to "w
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