A puzzling usage of ‘which’ to introduce a relative clause
IN a posting sometime ago, Forum member Miss Mae said one of the things she was very careful about is to put a comma before “which” when it is used to introduce a relative clause. She was therefore puzzled why this sentence from an article about China did not use that comma before the relative clause “which came later”:
“Looked at from another angle, the aim of the ‘ Long March to resist Japan in north China’ was to allow CCP members to rest and recoup their strength, and provided a reliably safe and self-
west for the armed against Japan
Let’s look closely at that usage of “which,” which leads off the subordinate clause “which came later” to express a consequence or result. That clause is therefore
resistance a the kind that’s essential or indispensable to the meaning of the sentence. Its opposite is, of course, a the kind that’s not absolutely necessary to the meaning of the sentence. It merely adds information to the sentence and can actually be dropped without altering its basic idea.
In American English, the convention is to use “that” to introduce a restrictive or essential clause, and to use “which” preceded by a comma to introduce a nonrestrictive or nonessential clause. Miss Mae was particularly referring to this grammatical convention, and she was absolutely right in expecting that comma to precede the “which” in that sentence, as follows:
“Looked at from another angle, the aim of the ‘Long March to resist Japan in north China’ was to allow CCP members to rest and recoup their strength, and provided a reliably safe
the north- west for the armed resistance against Japan,
But why wasn’t that comma provided before the “which” in that article?
The answer is either that sentence is grammatically wrong or it’s not in American English at all. Indeed, when I checked its provenance, I found out that the article was written by Xuç Xînrán, pen name Xinran, a BritishChinese journalist, broadcaster, and writer. That particular usage of “which” is therefore grammatically correct because we’re dealing with a British English sentence here.
In British English, “which” is used in place of “that” for introducing both restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses. The convention in British English is to mark a nonrestrictive clause by preceding the “which” with a comma; when no comma is used to precede “which,” the clause that follows it is intended to be restrictive. Indeed, the absence of that comma before “which” is a telltale sign of a British English sentence, one that in American English would be routinely rendered with a “that”—with no comma before it, of course—as follows:
“Looked at from another angle, the aim of the ‘ Long March to resist Japan in north China’ was to allow CCP members to rest and recoup their strength, and provided a reliably safe and self-
west for the armed against Japan
But subsequently, another Forum member, Mwita Chacha, commented that even if “that” is substituted for “which,” that sentence would still be “still wanting in the other grammar aspects.” He was right. Its sense would be
resistance much clearer if the pronoun “it” is used as the subject of that relative clause and the verb “provide” is used in its past-tense emphatic form, as follows:
“Looked at from another angle, the aim of the ‘Long March to resist Japan in north China’ was to allow CCP members to rest and recoup their strength, and
a reliably safe and
west for the armed against Japan
(Next: self-
resistance
No, we shouldn’t stop learning English grammar ever)