"...who although they had..."

Question

"As might be expected, Maugham was particularly scornful of the lessons in French, taught by masters who although they had a good grasp of grammar made no attempt to reproduce what they considered an entirely unnecessary foreign accent."

Do you think that the "they" should not have been there?

Rover_KE · Accepted Answer

No. It's necessary there.

Sesquipedalian101 · Answer

Thank you very much, Rover_KE.

I thought it should have been,

"... masters who, although had a good grasp of grammar, made no attempt to reproduce what they considered an entirely unnecessary foreign accent."

I would have inserted commas after "who" and "grammar", and removed "they" altogether. Would I have been grammatical without altering the meaning?

Terryxpress · Answer

I agree with the commas; but let's look at the clause you want to change:

"... masters who, although had a good grasp of grammar, made no attempt to reproduce what they considered an entirely unnecessary foreign accent."

What is the subject of the clause?

Sesquipedalian101 · Answer

Thank you very much, Terryxpress.

Please pardon my ignorance, Terryxpress. I was under the impression that the clause "although had a good grasp of grammar" refers to the subject in the main clause, i.e., "masters". Hence, it did not require "they".

Is it possible?

(And, by the bye, is "although.... grammar" called "non-defining clause"?)

Terryxpress · Answer

It does. But the clause does not have a subject itself.
compare
"... masters who, although I had a good grasp of grammar, considered I had an entirely unnecessary foreign accent."
"... masters who, although the students had a good grasp of grammar, made no attempt to ....
"... masters who, although they had a good grasp of grammar, made no attempt to reproduce what they considered an entirely unnecessary foreign accent."

As a person reads the clause, he needs to know 'who or what is the writer talking about here'.

"... and masters who made no attempt to reproduce what they considered an entirely unnecessary foreign accent."
It is a non-defning clause, adding extra information; and the essential meaning of the sentence is preserved if it is omitted, as above.

BillJ · Answer

Selvakumar"As might be expected, Maugham was particularly scornful of the lessons in French, taught by masters who, although they had a good grasp of grammar, made no attempt to reproduce what they considered an entirely unnecessary foreign accent. "Do you think that the "they" should not have been there?

"They" is certainly needed in the sentence as you've written it. And so are the commas I've inserted, which are needed to set apart the adjunct phrase commencing with "although".

"They" can be discarded by recasting the complement of "although", i.e. the finite clause "they had a good grasp of grammar", with a non-finite participial clause, like this:

".... taught by masters who, although having a good grasp of grammar, made no attempt to reproduce ..."

You asked in a subsequent question whether the phrase "although ...grammar" is non-defining. The answer is that it's an adjunct, the kind commonly referred to as a 'supplement', and supplements are always non-defining. Note, though, that the relative clause "who made no attempt to reproduce ..." is of course a defining clause.

BillJ

"...who although they had..."

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