SS Wisconsin Academy of Sciences^ ArlSj and Letters. 



is. Thus, in "Strawberries are wiiolesome," though I do not mean all 

 strawberries, I leave to you entirely 'the elimination of such as I da 

 not mean. It also does not follow that I cannot use an informational 

 clause. Thus I am likely enough to say that strawberries, which are 

 larger than currants, are very wholesome." That is "strawberries," 

 viewed as wholesome, means certain berries only, the unripe and the 

 aecayed being excluded; but "strawberries" viewed as larger than cur- 

 rants may even mean all berries of the species.^ 



The scope then of the simxUltaneous factor cannot, in either of its 

 functions, settle the question whether the relative clause be restrictive 

 or informational. This is settled purely by the speaker's intention. 

 This intention is usually known from mode (when reliabl-3), context,, 

 situation and the other available extra-linguistic aids. When it re- 

 mains unknown, the relative sentence merely presents a case of that 

 ambiguity with which language abounds. Such ambiguity of the rela- 

 tive clause, comparatively rare and of minor importance, I have noted 

 merely in the effort to avoid oversight, reserving all more careful ex- 

 amination for relative clauses of unequivocal value. 



Of these the informational clause, so far as I have observed, presents 

 no difficulties which do not also appear in clauses either principal or 

 restrictive. The last indeed so exceed the first, both in number and de- 

 gree of ditliculties, that I may in the interest of brevity, confine m.yself 

 in the main to restrictive clsAises. As a convenient background on 

 which to project them, I offer a few observations on 



II. THE INFORMATIOXAL RELATIVE CLAUSE. 



The distinctive features of this appear to best advantage, when 

 its services are compared with those of the principal clause. Ac- 

 cordingly, given ^'I have met Brown, who is ill,'' it is plain that 

 each of my clauses diligently attends to the business of giving 

 its own contingent of information ; and each neither aids nor 

 meddles with the business of the other. The information that I 

 met Brown is not made, in any one of its elements, either more 

 or less clear, certain or comprehensive by the mention of his 

 being ill ; and the information that he is ill is quite unaitected 

 by the mention of the meeting. The business of the relative 

 clause is then, when informational, exclusively its o^m, a fact 

 of multiple significance. 



In the first place it is obvious that, of two things one: either 

 a given relative clause is needed to restrict some element of the 



^My change in the scope of simultaneous factor is hardly flattering to my 

 mental precision, but does not, I think, outdo the practice of average minds. 



