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by silicon2401
1542 days ago
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is there a name for this grammatical construction? it's one of my favorites in English but I have no idea what it's called. I also wonder if younger readers nowadays would even be familiar with it unless they enjoy reading older literature, as I almost never see it in modern writing. |
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Well, for one thing, the section on "which" begins: "This word, used immoderately, is possibly responsible for more bad sentences than any other in the language" :-)
Ah, it refers me to a more relevant section for this construction, "Remote Relatives". Checking that.
"Antecedent" and "relative clause" are relevant terms, meaning the word to which "which" refers, and the clause containing "which", respectively, but I can't find a name for specifying the antecedent after "which", in this text. Actually, on a skim, I didn't even see that presented as an option.
[EDIT] Incidentally, it appears the Times usage is correct, anyway, if still ill-advised—the antecedent should be the closest possible candidate before the relative clause, so "[...] Amazon, which [...]" is correct.