PDF《Relative Clauses》

Open Journal of Modern Linguistics 2013.

Vol.3, No.4, 356-359 Published Online December

2013 in SciRes (http://www.scirp.org/journal/ojml) http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ojml.2013.34046 Open Access

356 A Comparative Study of as and Which in Non-Restrictive Relative Clauses Jiancheng Wang, Junhong Tang Foreign Language Department of Baoding University, Baoding, China Email: jianchengwang@163.com Received September 17th , 2013;

revised October 19th , 2013;

accepted October 27th ,

2013 Copyright ?

2013 Jiancheng Wang, Junhong Tang. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Both as and which can introduce a non-restrictive relative clause. But each of them has its own par- ticular function in meaning, part of speech and sentence structure. Therefore sometimes they can have similar usage in a certain situation, while most often they are quite different and can not be used alterna- tively. Keywords: Non-Restrictive Relative Clause;

Relative Words;

As;

Which Introduction In any grammar book, the usage of as and which is illus- trated, but the students are still confused in many cases and can not use them correctly in context. The usage of these two rela- tive words is far more complicated and needs a detailed study of the different special and distinctive features. Part of Speech and Meaning In a non-restrictive relative clause, the use of which is not so complicated. It is used as a relative pronoun, the meaning of which is determined by the antecedent it refers to, and it can be interpreted as that , those things , that case , and so on. As is much complicated both in the part of speech and in meaning. Traditionally, just like which , it is usually defined as a relative pronoun, as Professor Bo (2005: p. 536) and Pro- fessor Wang (2005: p. 491) put it. Some English dictionary also put it into pronoun category. Defining as as a pronoun can make people understand eas- ily which word it refer to, but can not make clear the meaning of it in context. Actually, as can not be understood so simply as a replace- ment for a word or words in the main clause, because it can has a special meaning in a certain situation . So the 4th edition of Longman dictionary (2004) regards as as a conjunction: Example 1. David, as you know, has not been well lately (as: used to say that what you are saying is already known or has been stated before). And in the Oxford English-Chinese dictionary (1997) there is no pronoun to define as , with the following examples used as conjunctions: Example 2. Cyprus, as you know, is an island in the Medi- terranean (as: a fact which). Example 3. She'

s unusually tall, as are both her parents (as: and so too). The 6th edition Oxford dictionary (2004) interprets as as: used to make a comment or to add information about what you have just said with the following two examples: Example 4a. She'

s very tall, as is her mother. Example 4b. As you know, Julia is leaving soon. Therefore as , when introducing a non-restrictive relative clause, serves syntactic function as a special relative pronoun with the function of a conjunction. It can be used to refer to something in the main clause in some case, and meanwhile to add some special information to the main clause, such as manner , reason , and so on, according to the context. Syntax and Structure Function Both as and which can be used in a non-restrictive rela- tive clause to refer to a part or the whole main clause. In some situation, they can be used alternatively. But sometimes can not. The following principles should be considered. Principle of Contextual Meaning The meaning of the contextual clauses is the key point in choosing as or which in the relative clause. Since as has its own special meaning, the clause it introduced is a supple- ment to the main clause and the meaning of the main clause and the non-restrictive relative clause should not be against each other. Quirk (1985: p. 1117) regards this type of clause as a comment clause which needs a requirement that the as-clause must be semantically congruent with its matrix clause (the following examples with * is not correct): J. C. WANG, J. H. TANG Open Access