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Date:      Sun, 17 Oct 2004 14:02:53 +0200
From:      Matthias Andree <ma@dt.e-technik.uni-dortmund.de>
To:        David Syphers <dsyphers@u.washington.edu>
Cc:        rionda@gufi.org
Subject:   Re: UPDATING readability
Message-ID:  <m3vfd95z82.fsf@merlin.emma.line.org>
In-Reply-To: <200410161416.51163.dsyphers@u.washington.edu> (David Syphers's message of "Sat, 16 Oct 2004 14:16:50 -0700")
References:  <1097916792.1810.4.camel@kaiser.sig11.org> <200410161208.32381.dsyphers@u.washington.edu> <200410161625.42502.marc.ramirez@bluecirclesoft.com> <200410161416.51163.dsyphers@u.washington.edu>

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David Syphers <dsyphers@u.washington.edu> writes:

> Okay... this would be grammatically correct. However, I'm curious why the 
> original poster believes the current version to be unclear, since it is also 
> grammatically correct. (Omitting "that" or "which" at the beginning of a 
> restrictive relative clause is very common in English.)

Yes, but this is pretty special to English; I know three other languages
and English is the only one that leaves the _necessary_ relative clause
(as in this case) without pronouns or other distinction. I'd agree that
is correct, and from a knowledgable point of view, it is desirable to
omit the commas and the "which", but I understand that less skilled
non-native speakers may have difficulties understanding the whole
paragraph.

-- 
Matthias Andree

Encrypted mail welcome: my GnuPG key ID is 0x052E7D95 (PGP/MIME preferred)



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