On genitive antecedants.

Bubble   Thu Jul 30, 2009 5:25 am GMT
"1. I found there was very little information, which suggested that it was an obscure expression."


I found there was very little information (at all). The fact of there not being much information suggested that it was an obscure expression.


"I found there was very little information which suggested that it was an obscure expression."


I found very little information of the kind that suggested that it was an obscure expression. I may have found other information of the kind that suggested that it wasn't an obscure expression. Implies there is no basis to believe that it is an obscure expression.
Another Guest   Thu Jul 30, 2009 6:30 am GMT
"I found there was very little information, which suggested that it was an obscure expression."
Means "The fact that there was very little information suggested that it was an obscure expression".

"I found there was very little information that suggested that it was an obscure expression."
Means "I found that the amount of information that suggested it was an obscure expression was small".

"I found there was very little information which suggested that it was an obscure expression."
Is not a grammatically correct sentence. If the first meaning is meant, then it is incorrect for lack of a comma, and if the second one is meant, then it is incorrect for the use of "which" instead of "that".
Another Guest   Thu Jul 30, 2009 6:42 am GMT
morbid said:
<<You're forgetting that the majority of English learners do not learn English because they have an interest in English culture or British life. I learnt English so I could read engineering textbooks written by Americans/Chinese/German/French and yes, maybe a few British people. Britain as a country though is not even on the radar.>>

To avoid ambiguity, you might want to say something like "For the majority of English learners, the reason for learning English is not that they have an interest in English culture or British life". Otherwise, it could be read as "The majority of English learners do not English. The reason for this is because they have an interest in English culture or British life." Until, of course, the reader realizes that doesn't make sense. And if your main reason for learning English is to communicate with Americans, "learnt" is an odd word choice.
Another Guest   Thu Jul 30, 2009 6:52 am GMT
While exposure to Anglophone culture may be beneficial to English learners, that is not the focus of this forum. Should someone wish to know about English life, I am sure there are other sites they could visit. When people visit this forum, they expect to see discussions of English.

And no, punctuation is not merely a matter of style. While there are a few cases where it can be a matter of personal preference, for the most part commas are placed for solid grammatical reasons, and change the meaning of a sentence (and are not to indicate "take a breath"). Just because you are unaware of the grammatical significances of commas does not mean that they do not exist.
MollyB   Thu Jul 30, 2009 8:50 am GMT
<Is not a grammatically correct sentence. If the first meaning is meant, then it is incorrect for lack of a comma, and if the second one is meant, then it is incorrect for the use of "which" instead of "that".>

I think you need the advice of a major linguist there, Another Guest:

" I'm used to the which-hunters' ill-informed prejudice against the traditional role of which in integrated relative clauses..."

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=183

Please read it all.
Fizz   Thu Jul 30, 2009 8:55 am GMT
Get real, Another Guest!

"•There is an old myth that which is not used in integrated relative clauses (e.g. something which I hate) and that has to be used instead something that I hate). It is completely untrue. The choice between the two is free and open. The people who repeat the old story about which being banned do not respect the prohibition in their own writing (Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage points out a book by Jacques Barzun which recommends against it on one page and then unthinkingly uses it on the next!). I don't respect it either — re-read that last parenthesis. As a check on just how common it is in excellent writing, I searched electronic copies of a few classic novels to find the line on which they first use which to introduce an integrated relative, to tell us how much of the book you would need to read before you ran into an instance:"

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000918.html
Another Guest   Thu Jul 30, 2009 9:25 pm GMT
MollyB wrote:

<<I think you need the advice of a major linguist there, Another Guest:>>
Odd. According to that website, "The first thing to say is that the only possible way to settle a question of grammar or style is to look at relevant evidence. I suppose there really are people who believe the rules of grammar come down from some authority on high..." And yet you present the link as some sort of authority on high. Just why should I take the opinion of a self-appointed expert as being definitive, when even that expert says that one should not the opinions of a self-appointed experts as being definitive?

<<Please read it all.>>
All of what? All of the page to which you linked? It is not relevant to the issue that is at hand. All of the website of which the page is a part? That's several hundred articles.

According to your position, the only way to distinguish restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses is by commas, a distinction that is not available in spoken English.

Also note that I did not say that "which is not used in integrated relative clauses". Or that which cannot be used in restrictive clauses. I said that in this particular case, "that" would be the correct word to indicate a restrictive clause. It strikes me as quite odd to seize upon the absence of a comma but ignore word choice.

"I want a car which can handle corners really well."
"The computers which don't work will be disposed of."
"The house which I wanted to buy has been sold."

You seriously don't think these are, at best, poorly written? There was another sentence that I came across where the use use of "which" was even more blatantly wrong, but unfortunately I can't remember it.