relative "that" again

[Gerald Walton]

What I learned is that the "that" in "The guy that you met" is a
relative pronoun, meeting three criteria for relative pronouns, and
that "that" in "I know that you met the guy" is a simple
subordinating conjunction, whose only purpose is to introduce the
noun clause, which is the direct object of the verb "know."
Gerald


>Several weeks ago we had a lengthy discussion on the ATEG list
>(Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar, a group within NCTE) on
>whether "that" in relative clauses like
>
>The guy that you met at the airport...
>
>is a pronoun or simply the same subordinating conjunction as in a
>content clause
>
>I know that you met the guy at the airport.
>
>I argued, drawing on Jespersen, my own Language paper (1976), and a
>more thorough discussion in Huddleston&Pullum, that it's simply a
>subordinator, and I think the case is overwhelming, with almost no
>evidence to the contrary. However, there are two troublesome kinds of
>data for my claim.
>
>First there is the non-standard form "that's" as in
>
>The guy that's sister married your cousin...
>
>Several on the list argue that the fact that "that" takes a genitive
>clitic in non-standard usage makes it a pronoun at least in those
>varieties of English. This claim is weakened by the fact that
>demonstrative "that" never takes genitive -'s. I raised the
>possibility that relative "that" cliticizes to the head NP of the
>relative clause and that the -'s then cliticizes to that noun-headed
>construction, an analysis, that I admittedly have no evidence for.
>
>The second problem usage with relative "that" came to my attention in
>a peculiar way, and I'm borrowing from my posting to the ATEG list.
>Last Wednesday evening I was directing my church choir in a rehearsal
>of Millard Walker's setting of Psalm 121 (Brodt Music Company 1966).
>The text is the metrical version of the psalm from the Bay Psalm Book
>(1640). The Bay Psalm text is
>
>1 I to the hills lift up mine eyes,
>        from whence shall come mine aid.
>   2 Mine help doth from Jehovah come,
>        which heav'n and earth hath made.
>   3 He will not let thy foot be moved,
>        nor slumber; that thee keeps.
>   4 Lo he that keepth Israel,
>        he slumbreth not, nor sleeps.
>   5 The Lord thy keeper is, the Lord
>        on thy right hand the shade.
>   6 The sun by day, nor moon by night,
>        shall thee by stroke invade.
>   7 The Lord will keep thee from all ill:
>        thy soul he keeps alway,
>   8 Thy going out, and thy in come
>        the Lord keeps now and aye.
>
>
>http://www.cgmusic.com/workshop/baypsalm_frame.htm
>
>It has been observed that the Puritan translators and versifiers of
>the Psalter did not include poetry among their virtues, sacrificing
>grammar and sometimes sense on the altar of meter and rhyme. What
>struck me, though, was verse 3.
>
>3 He will not let thy foot be moved,
>        nor slumber; that thee keeps.
>
>I have and still do maintain firmly that there is no grammatical
>evidence to support the claim that "that" used at the beginning of a
>relative clause is a pronoun and not simply a subordinating
>conjunction. Combine a grammarian with a choir director, however, and
>the thought interrupts maintaining the beat that this instance of
>relative "that" feels very pronominal, and not just in the
>impressionistic sense that others have expressed. This is the only
>instance of relative "that" I have encountered where "that" must be
>stressed. We rarely stress "that" as a subordinating conjunction,
>whether in a relative or a content clause. Here, however, the meter,
>so slavishly followed by the writers, requires us to stress "that."
>It's an iambic line, and "that" bears the ictus of the second foot.
>This also appears to be a case of a headless relative clause, as in
>"Who laughs last laughs best," and headless relatives must begin with
>pronouns, usually wh-words. Of course, if "that" is a pronoun in this
>case, and it does look like one, it violates the prescriptive notion
>that "that" refers only to non-humans. But then "which" in v. 2
>refers to Jehovah, not a human, but still a person. Early Modern
>English did allow such a use of "which" Anyone familiar with older
>editions of the King James Version remember "Our Father which art in
>heaven" as the opening of the Lord's Prayer.
>
>So there are two strong, grammatical reasons for considering this
>instance of relative "that" to be a pronoun. It's stressed (the
>subordinator "that" never is), and it introduces a headless relative,
>which only pronouns can do. Now, is this a quirk of bad Puritan
>poetry? Even if so, the construction had to feel possible or even
>these violators of grammar and sense wouldn't have used it. This
>instance demonstrates that there is a case in a strange bit of bad
>mid-17th c. verse of relative "that" used in a way that can only be
>considered a pronoun. The evidence in Late Modern English remains
>overwhelming that we no longer do so, if English speakers ever
>actually did.
>
>I admit I don't know quite what to make of the Puritan pronominal
>relative "that."
>
>Herb
>
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