Pronouns with restrictive relative clauses

[Richard W]

I don’t believe first and third person pronouns can take them. I’ll change that now.

Assuming you mean "second", not "third", I mostly agree, though something like "you who are tired may sleep" as shorthand for "those of you who are tired ..." may work? (Still, "you" is technically still in the objective case, cf. "us who are tired ..." so it may not be a good example).

We who have gathered here tonight have one thing in common...

You who are a boss, do what is right to your servants.

However, I had to do a lot of searching to find 'you' as the subject, as opposed to 'those of you', and to find a clearly restrictive clause with antecedent 'we'. It's a bit tricky, whence the common question "Who's 'we'?".

[akam chinjir]

"We who are about to die salute you."

[Richard W]

"We who are about to die salute you."

It looks restrictive, but I think it isn't. This 'we' is also a chorus, rather 'I plus some others'.

[Kuchigakatai]

Dixon was originally the one who said this, and I couldn’t think of any counter-examples, so thanks for providing some! But I think it’s only third person pronouns which can take restrictive relative clauses — I don’t believe first and [second] person pronouns can take them. I’ll change that now.

I feel that there are some passages where the KJV may possibly do this with 1st/2nd person plural pronouns, e.g.

7 And when wee had finiſhed our courſe from Tyre, wee came to Ptolemais, and ſaluted the brethren, and abode with them one day.
8 And the next day we that were of Pauls company, departed, and came unto Ceſarea, and wee entred into the houſe of Philip the Evageliſt (*which was one of the ſeven) & abode with him.
(Source: Acts 21, in a 1611 editio princeps)

I think this is possibly equivalent to modern English "those of us that were with Paul" (or "those of us that had arrived with Paul")? It sounds to me that he's restricting the group to his group led by Paul, as opposed to a larger group that would include the brethren of Caesarea.

However, I had to do a lot of searching to find 'you' as the subject, as opposed to 'those of you', and to find a clearly restrictive clause with antecedent 'we'. It's a bit tricky, whence the common question "Who's 'we'?".

That the question gets asked at all arguably implies that the restrictive interpretation is valid though.

(Also, I think "Who's we?" is also often asked because "we" is so wildly ambiguous, being able to be 1+2, 1+3 or 1+2+3, besides being able to encompass different group levels of people. I remember one time when dhok was talking to someone elsewhere and dhok said something like "How much do we know about the grammar of Byzantine Greek?", and the other person said "Who's we?" Nobody in the room there knew Byzantine Greek, but dhok was asking about "humanity today as a whole" or "people who do things in linguistics" or "people who study Greek" or similar, and the guy was mocking him with the interpretation "us here in the room".)

[bradrn]

Alright, I’ve changed the post to say that it’s first and second person singular pronouns which can’t take restrictive relative clauses. Is everyone happy now?

(Admittedly, I shouldn’t be sarcastic — this was an error on my part. I really should have realised that ‘we’ can also take restrictive relative clauses.)

[Richard W]

Alright, I’ve changed the post to say that it’s first and second person singular pronouns which can’t take restrictive relative clauses. Is everyone happy now?

So long as there's no danger of sentences like 'I'm happy when warm' being translated to something which may be classed as a restrictive relative clause. Which 'me' is one talking about? The problem with the constructions is interpretability. And how would you analyse, "That's not the me you're familiar with."? I've made that sentence up, but it doesn't feel forced.

[bradrn]

Alright, I’ve changed the post to say that it’s first and second person singular pronouns which can’t take restrictive relative clauses. Is everyone happy now?

So long as there's no danger of sentences like 'I'm happy when warm' being translated to something which may be classed as a restrictive relative clause.

I’m not sure I understand what you’re trying to say here… what do you mean by ‘translation’ in this context?

And how would you analyse, "That's not the me you're familiar with."? I've made that sentence up, but it doesn't feel forced.

That’s a pretty odd sentence even disregarding the relative clause — it also has a pronoun modified by a definite article, which is ungrammatical (at least in English it is, I’m not sure about other languages.) If you remove various components, both “That’s not the me” and “That’s not me that you’re familiar with” are completely ungrammatical, so I have a feeling there’s something funny going on there.

[jal]

If you remove various components, both “That’s not the me” and “That’s not me that you’re familiar with” are completely ungrammatical, so I have a feeling there’s something funny going on there.

This is turning into a whole 'nother discussion now, I suggest taking it elsewhere, and leave this thread to ergativity.


JAL

[bradrn]

(On jal’s suggestion, I’m splitting this discussion from Ergativity for Novices into a separate thread.)

Alright, I’ve changed the post to say that it’s first and second person singular pronouns which can’t take restrictive relative clauses. Is everyone happy now?

So long as there's no danger of sentences like 'I'm happy when warm' being translated to something which may be classed as a restrictive relative clause.

I’m not sure I understand what you’re trying to say here… what do you mean by ‘translation’ in this context?

And how would you analyse, "That's not the me you're familiar with."? I've made that sentence up, but it doesn't feel forced.

That’s a pretty odd sentence even disregarding the relative clause — it also has a pronoun modified by a definite article, which is ungrammatical (at least in English it is, I’m not sure about other languages.) If you remove various components, both “That’s not the me” and “That’s not me that you’re familiar with” are completely ungrammatical, so I have a feeling there’s something funny going on there.

[Ryusenshi]

And how would you analyse, "That's not the me you're familiar with."? I've made that sentence up, but it doesn't feel forced.

You could argue that "me" is implicitly quoted here. That's not the "me" you're familiar with. This construction isn't particularly weird otherwise: I've heard several people saying something about the old "me".

[Richard W]

So long as there's no danger of sentences like 'I'm happy when warm' being translated to something which may be classed as a restrictive relative clause.

I’m not sure I understand what you’re trying to say here… what do you mean by ‘translation’ in this context?

Merely translation into another language. I was looking at ways of restricting the scope of singular 'I' and 'you', and it occurred to me that a temporal clause with a sense of 'whenever' might be rendered by something that might be considered a relative clause. For example, participles may be used to translate English relative clauses, and I can't therefore rule out the possibility of restrictive expressions semantically qualifying 1st and 2nd person pronouns actually being restrictive relative clauses. As one can't step into the same river twice, 'me' is an even less unique designation than one might expect from its role as a pronoun.

[bradrn]

And how would you analyse, "That's not the me you're familiar with."? I've made that sentence up, but it doesn't feel forced.

You could argue that "me" is implicitly quoted here. That's not the "me" you're familiar with.

I don’t see how this would work: to me, that quoted sentence doesn’t make any sense.

This construction isn't particularly weird otherwise: I've heard several people saying something about the old "me".

My point was that just bare *the me seems ungrammatical to me; it needs an adjective or relative clause to make it work. (Possibly other modifiers would work as well, although off the top of my head I can’t think of any.)

[bradrn]

So long as there's no danger of sentences like 'I'm happy when warm' being translated to something which may be classed as a restrictive relative clause.

I’m not sure I understand what you’re trying to say here… what do you mean by ‘translation’ in this context?

Merely translation into another language. I was looking at ways of restricting the scope of singular 'I' and 'you', and it occurred to me that a temporal clause with a sense of 'whenever' might be rendered by something that might be considered a relative clause. For example, participles may be used to translate English relative clauses, and I can't therefore rule out the possibility of restrictive expressions semantically qualifying 1st and 2nd person pronouns actually being restrictive relative clauses. As one can't step into the same river twice, 'me' is an even less unique designation than one might expect from its role as a pronoun.

I must admit that I still don’t quite follow. Why would translation into another language be at all relevant? (In the original post I made which started this discussion, I was careful to specify that I was talking about English, since it may not necessarily be the same in other languages.) And I’m not sure I understand what you mean by ‘restricting the scope’ of pronouns here, or how you could translate these sort of sentences with relative clauses.

[Ryusenshi]

That's not the "me" you're familiar with.

I don’t see how this would work: to me, that quoted sentence doesn’t make any sense.

A: I thought you would never do that.
B: But I've changed. I'm no longer the same.
A: The "B" I know is way too selfish to do that.
B: But the new "me" is different. That's not the "me" you're familiar with.

I don't know, the sentence seems fine to me.

[bradrn]

That's not the "me" you're familiar with.

I don’t see how this would work: to me, that quoted sentence doesn’t make any sense.

A: I thought you would never do that.
B: But I've changed. I'm no longer the same.
A: The "B" I know is way too selfish to do that.
B: But the new "me" is different. That's not the "me" you're familiar with.

I don't know, the sentence seems fine to me.

And it seems pretty weird to me. I think that what’s happening is that we both have different interpretations of what quoting a word means: to me, it primarily means that you’re focusing on the word itself rather than its referent, while I assume it has a different meaning to you. For example, here’s a sentence where I would find it acceptable to quote ‘me’:

A: If a table could think, could it call itself ‘me’?
B: I don’t know — when I talk about tables, I call them ‘it’, not ‘me’.

(It’s a silly example, but hopefully you get my point.)

[Ryusenshi]

I have the same interpretation of quoting as you do, in general. Here, I was extending the meaning a little bit. I was thinking about scare quotes, when you use a word because it's the one in common use but still want to distance yourself from it. In this case, we're extending the meaning of "me" a little bit, treating as a kind of name rather than a pronoun. Maybe I'm just grasping for straws.

[Richard W]

I must admit that I still don’t quite follow. Why would translation into another language be at all relevant? (In the original post I made which started this discussion, I was careful to specify that I was talking about English, since it may not necessarily be the same in other languages.) And I’m not sure I understand what you mean by ‘restricting the scope’ of pronouns here, or how you could translate these sort of sentences with relative clauses.

Fair enough on language - it was not mentioned in jal's challenge. And the original claim mostly asserted infrequency, which does appear to be correct.

As to translation, it's not immediately obvious to me that "Phom ti op-un sabai chai" isn't grammatical (though inelegant) Thai. The word ti meaning 'who, at' may admit of just the right degree of impermanence. Word for word gloss: I at/who warm content [at] heart. Of course, Thai personal pronouns are a slightly dubious category, being rather an open set. Someone who knows Thai better may be able to shoot it down - it may need a resumptive pronoun (such as 'man') in the middle.

[Richard W]

I have the same interpretation of quoting as you do, in general. Here, I was extending the meaning a little bit. I was thinking about scare quotes, when you use a word because it's the one in common use but still want to distance yourself from it. In this case, we're extending the meaning of "me" a little bit, treating as a kind of name rather than a pronoun. Maybe I'm just grasping for straws.

It's quite similar to "That's not the John I know", which can mean, for example, that some instance of John's behaviour is extremely untypical of John.