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From: tosca@ihnp4.UUCP (lyn cole)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Re: Death for we who deserve it
Message-ID: <698@ihnp4.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 8-Jan-85 13:26:00 EST
Article-I.D.: ihnp4.698
Posted: Tue Jan  8 13:26:00 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 9-Jan-85 05:34:13 EST
References: <287@ho95b.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
Lines: 46


Okay, i will perhaps concede the comma isn't needed in the
construction: "My father objects to me[,] picking my nose,"
though that construction looks and sounds awkward to me
with or without the comma.  However, my statement that sentence 1
was incorrect referred only to that comma.  Michael ellis' two
counterexamples (noun + participle) sound awkward to me, also,
though i'm prepared to admit that i have always enjoyed studying
some of the fine points of grammar (though Latin and German do
overdo it a bit!).

My Strunk and White says:
"The construction [of noun or pronoun plus participle] is
occasionally found, and has its defenders.  ....
Any sentence in which the use of the possessive is awkward
or impossible should of course be recast."

Joe Fasel's good explanation of the relative clause involved may
have answered Robert Neinast's latest question, but here's an
additional comment.  Robert asks: "Can the *we* in "1a" be considered correct,
as the subject of the phrase *we who deserve it*, and then the whole
phrase is the object of the main clause?"

The answer is an emphatic "no".  First, "who deserve it" is a clause,
not a phrase, i.e., it has a subject and predicate.  This is why "who",
the subject, is in the nominative case.  A phrase, e.g., a prepositional
phrase, is, "a sequence of two or more words arranged grammatically and
not having a subject and predicate, as a preposition and a noun or
pronoun, an adjective and a noun, verb and an adverb, etc." (according
to my Random House dictionary).  The group "we who deserve it" is a
phrase consisting of pronoun ("we") and adjective (clause: "who deserve
it").  The pronoun must thus be in the case determined by its use
(nominative "we" as subject or predicate nominative of sentence or
clause, objective "us" for anything else).

The gist of the matter is that a clause is a tight unit in which forms
(including cases) of constituent parts are determined by their uses in
the clause, while a phrase is a looser construction of words whose forms
are determined by their uses in the enclosing clause (whew!).

from the  asymp       S      of lyn cole (ihnp4!tosca)
               tot    T		AT&T Bell Laboratories
                 ic   A		Naperville, IL
                  al  B		(312) 979-2729
                    l L
                    y E