Re: about antecedents
- From: dontbother <dontbother@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 15:39:15 +0000 (UTC)
"Kay" <zyuuzika@xxxxxxxxx> wrote
Which is (are) antecedent(s) in the following sentence?
Instead, the research team is restricted by some dollar resource
constraint, some time frame, or some other parameter that serves
to limit the type of design chosen to solve the research problem.
Someone told me that 'some dollar resource constraint', 'some time
frame', and 'some other parameter' are all antecedents. But is
there no chance that only 'some other parameter' is the
antecedent?
The immediate antecedent of "that" in this sentence is "(some other)
parameter". The other two are not antecedents of "that". Why not?
Because, while the relative clause introduced by "that" defines the
other parameter that limits the type of design that can be chosen, it
doesn't necessarily have to. In addition, the restrictive aspect of
"some dollar resource constraint" and "some time frame" has already
been mentioned and so the restrictive relative clause is not needed to
define the first two restrictive parameters.
It would probably better for this sentence read "Instead, the research
team is restricted in the type of design it can choose by funding
limits, time contraints, or some other parameter". This sentence needs
no relative clause, demonstrating that the first two contraints can't
be the antecedants.
--
Franke: EFL teacher & medical editor
Native speaker of American English; posting from Taiwan.
Unmunged email: /at/easypeasy.com
"Impatience is the mother of misery."
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