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Embedded PP

Today’s Bizarro:

PPs within PPs. All are postnominal modifying PPs that are (roughly) equivalent to postnominal relative clauses:

the memo which was about the meeting which was about the conference call which was about the memo which was on how to schedule meetings

So these postnominal PPs have been referred to as “reduced relative clauses”.

This entry was posted on February 17, 2014 at 11:22 am and is filed under Linguistics in the comics, Syntax. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Embedded PP”

  1. John Lawler Says:
    February 17, 2014 at 11:33 am | Reply

    I like Jim McCawley’s name for them: the remains of deceased clauses.

  2. Randy Alexander Says:
    February 17, 2014 at 11:36 am | Reply

    In content this reminds me of a haiku I saw in Mangajin, a Japanese language learning magazine from the 90s:

    Meeting to decide
    The right time to schedule the
    Meeting to decide.

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