| 词组 | contact clause |
| 释义 | contact clause Contact clause is one of several terms grammarians use for a dependent clause attached to its antecedent without benefit of a relative pronoun. Some dictionaries and usage commentators discuss contact clauses under the heading that, omission of; in practice, however, any relative pronoun (as who, whom, or which) may be felt to be missing in a given instance. Here are a few samples of contact clauses, all taken from the third volume of Jespersen 1909-49: • Where is the thousand markes ˄ I gaue thee, villaine? —Shakespeare • Here she set up the same trade ˄ she had followed in Ireland —Daniel Defoe • The seed ˄ ye sow, another reaps —Shelley • This wind ˄ you talke of —Shakespeare • Those nice people ˄ I stayed in Manchester with — Mrs. Humphrey Ward • I am not the man ˄ I was —Dickens In each of these examples a relative pronoun could be inserted at the caret but is clearly not needed. Constructions such as these are appropriate in any variety of writing. Historically the contact clause is the result of a para-tactic construction of two independent clauses, not a relative clause with the relative pronoun omitted. Jespersen conjectures that contact clauses have been common in everyday speech for some six or seven hundred years; they seem to have come into literature as the forms of everyday speech came into it. In the 18th century, when the first influential grammars of English were written, English was analyzed by analogy with Latin. In Latin, relative clauses require the relative pronoun; English grammarians analyzing English in terms of Latin grammar decided that contact clauses must be relative clauses with the relative pronoun omitted. Their analysis has come down to the present day and may even be found in grammars not following Latin outlines: • In this transform the relative pronoun which replaces the noun phrase the street. If we wish, we may delete the relative pronoun and have a contact clause.... The transform is "The street we live on is quiet." —Harold B. Allen et al., New Dimensions in English, 1968 Since contact clauses did not exist in Latin, the 18th-century grammarians looked at them askance. Lindley Murray 1795 termed the construction "omitting the relative" and stated that "in all writings of a serious and dignified kind, it ought to be avoided." Jespersen quotes Samuel Johnson as calling the omission of the relative "a colloquial barbarism" (and also notes that examples can be found in Johnson's letters). It may be of interest that the contact clause was used in early modern English in constructions not found in present-day English. In present-day English the presumed pronoun of a contact clause would be the object of a verb or preposition: "The key you lost," "Here is the boy you sent for." In early modern English, however, the contact clause was also commonly used in subject relationship, where the "missing" pronoun would have been nominative, as in Shakespeare's "My father had a daughter loved a man" (Twelfth Night, 1602). That such constructions could easily lead to ambiguity is shown by Shakespeare's "I see a man here needs not live by shifts" (The Comedy of Errors, 1593) and "She loved me well deliver'd it to me" (The Two Gentlemen of Verona, 1595). Strang 1970 points out that ambiguity probably contributed to the decline of such use; in present-day English, contact clauses in subject relationship are seldom found except in constructions introduced by it is or there is (are): • ... it was haste killed the yellow snake —Rudyard Kipling (in Jespersen) • ... there are lots of vulgar people live in Grosvenor Square —Oscar Wilde (in Jespersen) • ... but the business of beauty—there is no person at all knows what that is —James Stephens, The Crock of Gold, 1912 Grammarians seem not to include within the domain of the contact clause a noun clause lacking the conjunction that: • Would you believe some reprocessing firms do not even remove the labels from old stock —Henry Hunt, Houston Post, 9 Sept. 1984 This is a closely related phenomenon, however, and it is often included in treatments headed that, omission of. It is as long and well established in English as the contact clause and is appropriate in any variety of writing. It is probably relatively more common in casual and general prose and relatively less common in prose that aims to fly high; it is probably more common after some verbs (as believe, hope, say, think) than others (as assert, calculate, hold, intend). All the same, it is at home in virtually any modern context. |
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