Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rutgers!mit-eddie!genrad!decvax!tektronix!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!bcsaic!michaelm
From: michaelm@bcsaic.UUCP (Michael Maxwell)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: which vs. that
Message-ID: <788@bcsaic.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 19-Nov-86 13:00:40 EST
Article-I.D.: bcsaic.788
Posted: Wed Nov 19 13:00:40 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 21-Nov-86 20:13:04 EST
References: <16381@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <217@mind.UUCP>
Reply-To: michaelm@bcsaic.UUCP (Michael Maxwell)
Organization: Boeing Computer Services AI Center, Seattle
Lines: 28

In article <16381@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>, citrin@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
(Wayne Citrin) writes:
> Will someone please explain the distinction between the relative pronouns
> "which" and "that"?

There is some (rather equivocal) evidence that wh-words like "which" occupy a
different "slot" in COMP from complementizers like "that."  I know of no good
arguments for this in Modern English (although I believe people said things
like "the book which that you saw" in earlier periods of English).  But there
are arguments for a distinction from other languages, e.g for Bavarian German;
cf.:
%A Josef Bayer
%D 1984
%T Towards an explanation of certain that-\fIt\fP phenomena: The COMP-node in
Bavarian
%B Sentential Complementation
%E W. de Geest and Y. Putseys
%P 23-32
%I Foris Publications
%C Dordrecht
Apparently you can say things equivalent to "I wonder who that you saw" in
Spanish, at least in some dialects.  But even if wh-words in other
languages are distinct from complementizers, it doesn't necessarily follow that
they are in English.
-- 
Mike Maxwell
Boeing Advanced Technology Center
	...uw-beaver!uw-june!bcsaic!michaelm