which or that?

Question

Question: Is the underlined 'that' grammatically wrong?

The ultimate life force lies in tiny cellular factories of energy, called mitochondria, that burn nearly all the oxygen we breathe in.

If the writer thought 'mitochondria' as an antecedent, 'that' should be 'which'. On the other hand, if the writer thought 'tiny celluar factories of energy' as an antecedent, 'that' could be right, even though I learned relative pronoun 'that' can not be used after comma.

The question is "Is the underlined 'that' grammtically wrong?" So the underlined 'that' could be wrong, if the word 'mitochondria' is the anctecedent. Am I wrong?

Avangi · Accepted Answer

In my opinion, the "that" in question is grammatically correct.

We're allowed to add commas for clarity. I don't believe the comma rule you quote applies here.

("called mitochondria" is optionally set off with commas for clarity)

If ", called mitochondria, " were omitted, would you question the use of that?

AlpheccaStars · Answer

The ultimate life force lies in tiny cellular factories of energy that burn nearly all the oxygen we breathe in.

The phrase "called mitochondria" is set off by commas because it is not essential to the sentence.

Jasonlee · Answer

1) The ultimate life force lies in tiny cellular factories of energy, which is called mitochondria which burn nearly all the oxygen we breathe in. -> grammatically right?

2) The ultimate life forces lies in tiny cellular factories of energy, which is called mitochondria, that burn nearly all the oxygen we breathe in. -> grammatically right?

3) The ultimate life forces lies in tiny celluar factories of energy, that burn nearly all the oxygen we breathe in. -> grammatically wrong?

Jasonlee · Answer

The ultimate life force lies in tiny cellular factories of energy, called mitochondria, that burn nearly all the oxygen we breathe in. I agree that the sentence above is right. But I don't think that the 'that' is totally right. I mean, "If a writer wrote 'mitochondria' as an antecedent, the 'that' should be 'which' and, therfore, the 'that' could be wrong." So, I think the 'that' could be right or wrong, according to the writer's intention.

CalifJim · Answer

jasonleeSo, I think the 'that' could be right or wrong, according to the writer's intention.

Yes, but where does that leave you? You have only the author's words to guide you to his intention. Obviously, you choose the interpretation that makes the author right. So the antecedent of 'that' is most probably 'factories'.

CJ

Avangi · Answer

Now I'm confused. Are we bringing essential vs. non-essential clauses into the mix?

The ultimate life force lies in the mitochondria, that burn nearly all the oxygen we breathe in.
In this version, the antecedent is not in question.
But deleting the comma changes the meaning, suggesting that some other mitochondria might be involved.

So I'm wondering if jasonlee's original advice meant to prohibit the use of "that" as a relative pronoun in non-essential clauses.

I'd still like to see an example (or an interpretation) which both of you agree is wrong.

Regards,
- A.

CalifJim · Answer

AvangiThe ultimate life force lies in the mitochondria, that burn nearly all the oxygen we breathe in.

Incorrect. Contradictory. Purely from the surface appearance of the sentence, the comma says the that-clause is non-essential. that itself says it's essential.

Therefore, it's got to be one of the three below.

1 The ... in the mitochondria that burn nearly all the oxygen we breathe in.
2 The ... in the mitochondria which burn nearly all the oxygen we breathe in.
3 The ... in the mitochondria, which burn nearly all the oxygen we breathe in.

1 and 2 show essential (restrictive) clauses; 3 shows a non-essential (non-restrictive) clause.
____________________

jasonlee's rather unconventional remarks say that if the author intended to write 3 but wrote 1, the sentence is wrong. In such a case what's wrong is not the sentence as it stands, but the writer's transformation of his thoughts into an English sentence — quite a peculiar thing to be concerned about, in my opinion. While true, what's unconventional about this claim of wrongness is that it presumes some impossible privileged access into the mind of the writer.

One may as well say that if an author writes "happy" in his sentence when he means "sad", he has created a sentence that is wrong. True, but grammatically irrelevant.

CJ

AlpheccaStars · Answer

jasonlee1) The ultimate life force lies in tiny cellular factories of energy, which is called mitochondria which burn nearly all the oxygen we breathe in. -> grammatically right?

No.
1) The ultimate life force lies in tiny cellular factories of energy, which are called mitochondria which burn nearly all the oxygen we breathe in.

In this case, the writer meant that the essential sentence is: The ultimate life force lies in tiny cellular factories of energy.
The rest would be non-essential. I don't agree that this was the writer's intention. From the original, I believe the writer intended the burning of oxygen to be essential information.

jasonlee2) The ultimate life forces lies in tiny cellular factories of energy, which is called mitochondria, that burn nearly all the oxygen we breathe in. -> grammatically right?

No. See #1.
The ultimate life force lies in tiny cellular factories of energy, (which are) called mitochondria, that burn nearly all the oxygen we breathe in.
This is basically the same as the original, but with a full clause rather than a reduced clause. Most writers would use the more natural reduced clause.

jasonlee3) The ultimate life forces lies in tiny celluar factories of energy, that burn nearly all the oxygen we breathe in. -> grammatically wrong?

Contradictory. The use of the comma points to a non-essential clause, yet "that" indicates the opposite.
The following is consistent, but it is different from the original sentence.

3) The ultimate life forces lies in tiny cellular factories of energy, which burn nearly all the oxygen we breathe in.

Jasonlee · Answer

Thanks for your advices.

I’ve thought the test items on grammar are made to test the writing ability ‘indirectly’, because it took too much time to test the writing ability directly.

The ultimate life force lies in tiny cellular factories of energy, called mitochondria, that burn nearly all the oxygen we breathe in.

In that sense, I’ve thought two cases.

Case 1)
Question: 'Is the underlined word grammatically right?'
Answer: Yes, the ‘that’ is right, because the ‘that’ is right.

Case 2)
Question: 'Is the underlined word grammatically wrong?'
Answer: Yes, the 'that' could be wrong, because the ‘that’ is wrong when the antecedent is ‘mitochondria’.

In my opinion, when making the test items on grammar, the structural ambiguity should be avoided.

CalifJim · Answer

jasonleebecause the ‘that’ is wrong when the antecedent is ‘mitochondria’.

I'm afraid I don't follow your reasoning on this one. I think it's just the comma that's bothering you, but it shouldn't, because it's just closing off the phrase that started with the previous comma.

There is no way that it could be

..., called mitochondria that burn nearly all the oxygen we breathe in

as if all those words were the name of the cellular factories mentioned earlier.

CJ

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