§ 9. Attributive appositive clauses.

Attributive appositive clauses disclose the meaning of the antecedent, which is expressed by an abstract noun. An attributive appositive clause is not separated from the principal clause by a comma.

Appositive clauses are chiefly introduced by the conjunction that, occasionally by the conjunction whether or by the adverbs how and why. They are not joined to the principal clause asyndetically.

He stopped in the hope that she would speak. (Dickens)

And then she had a nightmare conviction that she’d lost her sense of direction

and was going the wrong way. (Lindsay)

I have a presentiment that he is bringing trouble and misery with him into the

house. (Collins)

With his former doubt whether this dry hard personage were quite in earnest,

Clennam again turned his eyes attentively upon his face. (Dickens)

There was no reason why she should not read it (the book). (Hichens)

Thus to Cytherea and Owen Gray the question how their lives would end

seemed the deepest of possible enigmas. (Hardy)

§ 10. The use of relative pronouns in attributive relative clauses.

As has already been stated, attributive relative clauses are introduced by the following relative pronouns: who, which, that, as. In using these pronouns the following rules should be observed:

1. If the antecedent is a noun denoting a living being, who is mostly used.

Kate turned to the general, who was near her, his face expressionless, yet

alert. (Lawrence)

2. If the antecedent is a noun denoting an inanimate object, wwhich is mostly used.

In this room, which was never used, a light was burning. (Dickens)

The castle, which stood on the highest platform of the clustered hills, was

built of rough-hewn limestone. (Eliot)

3. The pronoun that may be used both when the antecedent is a noun denoting a living being and when it is a noun denoting an inanimate object. But it should be noted that the use of this pronoun in attributive clauses is limited; it is chiefly used in the following cases:

(a) if the antecedent is the pronoun all, everything or nothing.

All that she dreams comes true. (Dickens)

In a word, everything that goes to make life precious, that boy had. (Twain)

(b) if the antecedent is modified by an adjective in the superlative degree, by the adjective only, or by the indefinite pronoun any.

The door opened, and there entered to us, quietly, the most remarkable-l

ooking man that I had ever seen. (Collins)

The Moonstone was the only object that interested him in the smallest degree.

(Collins)

Any evil that people say of him is false. (Eliot)

N o t e. — In these cases (a, b) the attributive clause may be connected with

the principal clause asyndetically.

Time is all I want. (Dreiser)

Everything I could do to free myself came into my mind... (Eliot)

It was the worst Sunday he had spent in his life. (Dreiser)

I think she is the only really happy woman I have ever met with. (Collins)

4. If the antecedent is a noun modified by the demonstrative pronoun such the relative pronoun as is used.

For on the evening appointed for the Vauxhall party ... there came on such a

thunderstorm as only happens on Vauxhall nights, and as obliged the young

people, perforce, to remain at home. (Thackeray)