In Measure for Measure 2.2.785, Shakespeare wrote the following sentence: I have a brother is condemned to die. I am wondering why he omitted the relative pronoun and left the helping verb. Isn’t it correct to say? I have a brother condemned to die. Answer TL;DR In the half a millennium since Shakespeare was writing, … Read more
I have read some grammar points about adjective clauses, but I still have problems recognizing the right choice in questions requiring them. For example: All the students ____ do well in writing. Correct answer: Dr. Freeman teaches Why isn’t “that Dr. Freeman teaches them“ correct? And this one seems similar too: The problem ____ never … Read more
Sometimes, the word ‘that’ to introduce a dependent clause is optional. For example, these sentences both make sense with or without ‘that’: Long books [that] religious people like tend to be Bibles. Water tanks [that] fish need are spacious. … whereas in these sentences, ‘that’ is mandatory and the sentence is ungrammatical without it: Those … Read more
