Page 267 - English - Teaching Academic Esl Writing

SUBORDINATE CLAUSES 253
In academic writing, among all types of relative pronouns, who,that, and l
which are used far more frequently than whom, whose, when, or why. The fourth common relative pronoun is where to modify nouns that refer to places or nouns in prepositional phrases of place (e.g., the regions where, in the city where, or at thesite where). Other types of relativizers occasionally found in academic writing include in which and to which (Biber et al., 1999). A list of chunks with nouns and relative pronouns that follow them in frequently encountered ad-
jective clauses is included in the appendix to this chapter.
When working with adjective clauses, L2 writers must remember an im-
portant point:
Relative pronouns (e.g., that, who, and which) "copy" the grammati- cal information from the noun phrase they replace (i.e., if the noun phrase is plural, then the relative pronoun remains plural and re- quires the plural form of the verb).
In Example (1), Livia is a singular noun, therefore the pronoun who is also singular, and therefore the verb wasis also singular. On the other hand, in Example (2), the noun spices is plural, therefore the pronoun that is also plural, and therefore the verb were is plural.
In addition to these relatively simple adjective clauses, one more type of these constructions exists, and it is not so simple. In adjective clauses (1) and (2) with Livia and spices, the verb immediately follows the relative pronouns who (was) and that (were). Thus, a conclusion can be made that who and that are subjects of the adjective clauses who was Octavian's third wife and that were in extraordinarily high demand.
However, adjective clauses can become far more complex (and far more er- ror-prone) when the relative pronoun is the object of the adjective clause verb:
European expansion advanced outside the continent with the development of the sail and the gun. Western Europeans combined the sail and the gun in the
form of the gunned ship.
European expansion advanced outside the continent with the development of the sail and the gun, which Western Europeans combined [the sail and the gun] in theform of the gunned ship.
In (3)and (4), the adjective clause modifies the noun phrase that actually has the function of the verb object. When the verb object in the adjective clause is turned into a relative pronoun (e.g., who, that, which), two things happen:
'The pronounwhomisrequiredonlywhenitfollowsapreposition(e.g.,towhom,forwhom,about whom). In all other cases, who would be appropriate (Leech & Svartvik, 1994; Quirk et al., 1985).
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