Background

As is the case with auxiliary ‘do’ usage, early Modern English shows the emergence of a system of relativisation which will eventually be standardised in Present-day English, but which exists alongside, and in competition with, other forms and conventions. Relativisation is rather more complex than auxiliary ‘do’ however, in that it is not possible to produce a binary ‘regulated’ / ‘non-regulated’ analysis of relativisation strategies corresponding to the dichotomy of auxiliary ‘do’ usage.

In the Present-day Standard English utterance

1. (The man [… I know])

The relative clause ([…]) can be introduced by any one of three relative pronouns:

1. The man that I know

2. The man who I know

3. The man (0) I know

(in the final example the pronoun is termed zero, represented by (0)). The relative pronoun ‘which’ would not be possible in this position in Present-day Standard English:

1. *The man which I know

because the antecedent (‘The man’) is human, and Present-day Standard English distinguishes between ‘who’ and ‘which’ on the basis of their antecedents.

In early Modern English, however, this distinction was not obligatory, as can be seen from the following examples from Shakespeare:

– ‘which’ with a personal antecedent (Coriolanus 1.06. 39–40);

– ‘who(m)’ with a non-personal antecedent (The Tempest 3.03. 62).