Hostname: page-component-75d7c8f48-zbnhx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-03-15T10:30:34.562Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Which That

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2026

Herbert F. W. Stahlke
Herbert F. W. Stahlke*
Affiliation:
Georgia State University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Most grammarians have treated the word that, used in relative clauses, as a relative pronoun. However, its syntactic behavior is not at all like that of a pronoun, and therefore it must be a conjunction. Data from Standard English that-relatives and WH-relatives, non-Standard English that-relatives, and relative clauses in Dari (Kabul Persian) and Yoruba suggest that syntactic islands be added to the Keenan-Comrie Accessibility Hierarchy (1972). The use of that in relative clauses is related to its use as a complementizer with declarative verbs.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 52 , Issue 3 , September 1976 , pp. 584 - 610
Copyright
Copyright © 1976 by Linguistic Society of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Awóbùlùyì, Ayódélé O. 1967. Studies in the syntax of the Standard Yoruba verb. New York: Columbia University dissertation.Google Scholar
Awóyalé, James O. Y. 1974. Studies in the syntax and semantics of Yoruba nominalizations. Urbana: University of Illinois dissertation.Google Scholar
Bever, Thomas G., and Langendoen, D. Terence. 1971. A dynamic model of the evolution of language. Linguistic Inquiry 2. 433–63.Google Scholar
Bolinger, Dwight L. 1972. That's that. The Hague: Mouton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cole, Peter, et. al. 1976. Noun phrase accessibility and island constraints. Syntax and semantics: grammatical relations, ed. by Cole, P. and Sadock, J. New York: Academic Press (to appear).Google Scholar
Curme, George O. 1931. Syntax. Boston: Heath.Google Scholar
Fillmore, Charles. 1968. The case for case. Universals in linguistic theory, ed. by Bach, Emmon & Harms, Robert T., 1–88. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.Google Scholar
Geis, Michael. 1970. Adverbial subordinate clause in English. Cambridge, MA: MIT dissertation.Google Scholar
Green, Georgia M. 1973. The relative infinitive construction. MS.Google Scholar
Grimshaw, Jane B. 1975. The relative clause in Middle English. Occasional Papers in Linguistics, University of Massachusetts, 1. 34–44.Google Scholar
Householder, Fred W. 1971. Linguistic speculations. Cambridge: University Press.Google Scholar
Houston, John. 1974. Dari relative clauses. Studies in the Linguistic Sciences, University of Illinois, 4.1:32–58.Google Scholar
Jespersen, Otto. 1927. A Modern English grammar on historical principles, III: Syntax, vol. 2. London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Keenan, Edward L. 1972. On semantically based grammar. Linguistic Inquiry 3. 414–61.Google Scholar
Keenan, Edward L., and Comrie, B. 1972. Noun phrase accessibility and universal grammar. MS.Google Scholar
Keyser, Samuel Jay. 1975. A partial history of the relative clause in English. Occasional Papers in Linguistics, University of Massachusetts, 1. 1–33.Google Scholar
Klima, Edward S. 1964. Relatedness between grammatical systems. Lg. 40. 1–20.Google Scholar
Lambton, A. K. S. 1971. Persian grammar. Cambridge: University Press.Google Scholar
Lees, Robert B. 1960. The grammar of English nominalizations. Bloomington: Indiana University.Google Scholar
Lord, Carol. 1973. Serial verbs in transition. Studies in African Linguistics 4. 269–97.Google Scholar
Morgan, Jerry. 1972. Some aspects of relative clauses in English and Albanian. The Chicago Which Hunt, 63–72. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.Google Scholar
Mustanoja, T. F. 1960. A Middle English syntax, I. Helsinki: Société Néophilologique.Google Scholar
Óké, David. 1974. Syntactic correlates of notionally defined adverbial types in Yoruba. Papers from the Fifth Conference on African Linguistics (Studies in African linguistics, supplement 5), ed. by Leben, William, 233–52. Los Angeles: UCLA.Google Scholar
Postal, Paul. 1971. A global constraint on pronominalization. Linguistic Inquiry 3. 35–59.Google Scholar
Poutsma, H. 1916. A grammar of Late Modern English, II: the parts of speech. Groningen: Noordhoff.Google Scholar
Quirk, Randolph, Greenbaum, Sidney, Leech, Geoffrey; and Svartvik, Jan. 1972. A grammar of contemporary English. New York: Seminar Press.Google Scholar
Ross, John R. 1967. Constraints on variables in syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT dissertation.Google Scholar
Stahlke, Herbert F. W. 1970. Serial verbs. Studies in African Linguistics 1. 60–99.Google Scholar
Stahlke, Herbert F. W. 1974. Pronouns and islands in Yoruba. Studies in African Linguistics 5. 171–204.Google Scholar
Stockwell, Robert, Schachter, Paul; and Partee, Barbara. 1973. The major syntactic structures of English. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.Google Scholar
Thompson, Sandra Annear. 1971. The deep structure of relative clauses. Studies in linguistic semantics, ed. by Fillmore, Charles J. & Langendoen, D. Terence, 79–96. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.Google Scholar
Zwicky, Arnold. 1970. Auxiliary reduction in English. Linguistic Inquiry 1. 323–36.Google Scholar