Meaning of the pronoun
newb...@yahoo.com.tw
loved". What does the meaning of the word "that" stand for? This is a
(grammar) question posted by someone on the internet. So only the
sentence that is without context.
I guess that it should mean "the calling", but it seems not correct for
other websites view the pronoun, "that", as the meaning of " a person".
Would anyone is able to tell me the correct answer?
I sincerely apprecaite any comment.
Marius Hancu
newb...@yahoo.com.tw wrote:
> I cam across to read a sentence - "She followed the calling of that she
> loved". What does the meaning of the word "that" stand for? This is a
> (grammar) question posted by someone on the internet. So only the
> sentence that is without context.
IMO, this should have been phrased:
She followed the calling of _what_ she loved.
i.e.
She pursued her interests in one activity/profession or another.
Marius Hancu
Robert Lieblich
>
> I cam across to read a sentence - "She followed the calling of that she
> loved". What does the meaning of the word "that" stand for?
Not to be unduly literal, but the meaning of the word doesn't stand
for anything. You can ask the meaningof the word, or what the word
stands for, but asking what the meaning of the word stands for makes
no sense. Ask the White Knight.[1]
> This is a
> (grammar) question posted by someone on the internet. So only the
> sentence that is without context.
>
> I guess that it should mean "the calling", but it seems not correct for
> other websites view the pronoun, "that", as the meaning of " a person".
>
> Would anyone is able to tell me the correct answer?
"That" is a demonstrative pronoun here and the object of the
preposition "of". It has no specific antecedent and doesn't actually
"stand for" anything. It's equivalent to something like "those
things" or "the aggregage of the things". The whole sentence means
"She followed the calling of the aggregate of the things she loved."
The sentence is made somewhat harder to understand by the omission of
the relative pronoun that could follow "that." At first reading "that"
could be mistaken for a relative, rather than a demonstrative,
pronoun, but in that case "of" would have no object. Insert the
relative and you have "that which she loved." This clarifies that
"that" is a demonstrative pronoun here. "Which" is the relative and
the object of the verb in the dependent clause "which she loved." It
is permitted to omit a relative pronoun that is the object of its
dependent clause, but doing so here can -- and apparently did -- cause
confusion.
Another way to look at this is that "that" ought to be "what." "What"
can be used in place of "that which." Maybe all we have here is a
slip in editing.
> I sincerely apprecaite any comment.
How kind of you.
[1] An allusion to a character in Lewis Carroll's *Through the Looking
Glass*.
--
Bob Lieblich
Who has his own dependent relatives
John Hatpin
It's more like "She followed the calling of that which she loved". If
that's baffling, read "that thing" for "that".
I don't have a problem with the way it's phrased in the original
example, though - it's quite elegant.
--
John Hatpin
UC
This sentence is incorrect.
Robert Lieblich
I do believe that UC has given us, in a mere four words, a
self-referentioal sentence that expresses a paradox.
Or perhaps he's trying to indicate that the sentence the OP asked
about is incorrect. If so, he's wrong.
--
Bob Lieblich
A 50-50 chance and he blows it
Marius Hancu
Robert Lieblich wrote:
> Insert the
> relative and you have "that which she loved." This clarifies that
> "that" is a demonstrative pronoun here. "Which" is the relative and
> the object of the verb in the dependent clause "which she loved." It
> is permitted to omit a relative pronoun that is the object of its
> dependent clause, but doing so here can -- and apparently did -- cause
> confusion.
>
> Another way to look at this is that "that" ought to be "what." "What"
> can be used in place of "that which." Maybe all we have here is a
> slip in editing.
I agree with both, but I suggested in my previous post the 2nd. Feels
less formal to me.
Marius Hancu
Don Phillipson
news:1155484516.0...@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> I cam across to read a sentence - "She followed the calling of that she
> loved". What does the meaning of the word "that" stand for? This is a
> (grammar) question posted by someone on the internet. So only the
> sentence that is without context.
1. Post again confirming the sentence is: "She followed the calling of
that she loved". The expected phrasing would be: ""She followed the
calling that she loved" so we need the confirmation.
2. A question about the meaning of a word is not a grammar
question. Questions about meanings are semantic; questions
about function are syntactic or grammatical.
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)
NOSPAM
> <newb...@yahoo.com.tw> wrote in message
> news:1155484516.0...@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
>> I cam across to read a sentence - "She followed the calling of that she
>> loved". What does the meaning of the word "that" stand for? This is a
>> (grammar) question posted by someone on the internet. So only the
>> sentence that is without context.
>
> 1. Post again confirming the sentence is: "She followed the calling of
> that she loved". The expected phrasing would be: ""She followed the
> calling that she loved" so we need the confirmation.
I'm also from Taiwan, so I did some digging, well, I'm SHOCKED by what
I've found because the sentence in question is from a no-name(?) online
Chinese-English dictionary in which the Chinese translation of that
sentence is wrong, not only that, the "which" is indeed MISSING.
Source of _that_ sentence:
www.dictionary.com
that (pron.)
4. The one, kind, or thing; something: She followed the calling of that
_which_ she loved.
Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language,
Fourth Edition
---
Well, I'm going to tell our fellow ESL learners not to trust that online
dictionary.
---------
- DJ
Not a native speaker of English
dcw
John Hatpin <no...@nowhere.net> wrote:
>It's more like "She followed the calling of that which she loved".
Perhaps it was "that that she loved", and one of the "that"s
cannibalized the other.
David