More on nesting
Task C - relative clauses (RCls) in 'The House that Jack Built'
It is arguable that one of the functions of the nursery rhyme 'The House
that Jack Built' is to teach young children how to use relative clauses.
Look at one of the sentences from the nursery rhyme
below (we have removed the lineation to make it easier for you to analyse)
and, starting from the right-hand end, put brackets around each of the
relative clauses.
To get you started, we have put brackets around the rightmost RCl for
you. When you have sorted out your brackets and worked out what is going
on in the sentence, compare your effort with ours.
our answer
Our answer:
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S
|
P
|
C
|
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This |
|
is |
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the dog (that chased the cat (that
killed the rat (that lived in the house (that Jack built)))).
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Overall, this sentence has a very simple SPC structure. But the NP
acting as the Complement of the sentence, and which has 'dog' as its
headword has a relative clause postmodifying it (beginning with the
relative Subject pronoun 'that'). That clause has the structure SPO,
but the NP acting as O in the RCl then has another RCl inside that (with
its own relative Subject pronoun), and so on. It is this ability to
nest clauses again and again inside other clauses or phrases which enables
us to construct truly complex sentences.
It is easiest to describe exactly what is going on by starting from
the right, with the most deeeply nested RCl.
-
The RCl 'that Jack built' postmodifies 'house',
-
'that lived in the house that Jack built' postmodifies 'rat',
-
'that killed the rat that lived in the house that Jack built'
postmodifies 'cat' and,
-
'that chased the cat that killed the rat that lived in the house
that Jack built' postmodifies 'dog', the headword of the Complement
NP.
If you would like to look at the nursery rhyme then try
this site:
The
original and "improved" versions of The House That Jack Built
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