Restrictiveness

<h2 id="restrictiveness-in-english">Restrictiveness in English</h2>
<p class="note">Main article: <a href="/facts/English_relative_clauses/dRQa3vqQ">English relative clauses</a></p>
<p>English does not generally mark modifiers for restrictiveness, with the exception of <a href="/facts/Relative_clause/zFSPHLwE">relative clauses</a>: non-restrictive ones are set off in speech through <a href="/facts/Intonation_(linguistics)/yzNJ9gdA">intonation</a> (with a pause beforehand and an uninterrupted melody[<i>dubious – discuss</i>]) and in writing by using commas, whereas restrictive clauses are not. Furthermore, although restrictive clauses can be headed by any of the <a href="/facts/Relative_pronoun/55bNzVPY">relative pronouns</a> <i>who(m)</i>, <i>which</i>, <i>that</i> or by a <a href="/facts/English_relative_clauses/dRQa3vqQ">zero</a>, non-restrictive clauses can only be headed by <i>who(m)</i> or <i>which</i>. For example:
</p>
<ul><li>Restrictive: <i>We saw two puppies this morning: one that was born yesterday and one that was born last week. The one that (</i>or<i> which<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:2" href="#fn:2"><sup>2</sup></a>) was born yesterday is tiny.</i></li>
<li>Non-restrictive: <i>We saw a puppy and a kitty this morning. The puppy, which was born yesterday, was tiny.</i></li></ul>
<p>Although English does not consistently mark ordinary <a href="/facts/Adjective/0ohBjtmT">adjectives</a> for restrictiveness, they can be marked <a href="/facts/Periphrasis/7kwxhz1R">periphrastically</a> by moving them into relative clauses. For example, "John's beautiful wife" can be rewritten as "John's wife, who is beautiful", to avoid the suggestion of disambiguation between John's various wives.  A sentence unmarked for restrictiveness, like "The red car is fancier than the blue one," can—if necessary—be rephrased to make it explicitly restrictive or non-restrictive: 
</p>
<ul><li>Restrictive: <i>The car that's red is fancier than the one that's blue.</i></li>
<li>Non-restrictive: <i>The car, which is red, is fancier than the other, which is blue.</i></li></ul>
<p>English speakers do not generally find such locutions necessary, however.
</p>
<h2 id="see-also">See also</h2>
<ul><li><a href="/facts/Apposition/9EkUqXHS">Apposition</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/English_relative_clauses/dRQa3vqQ">English relative clauses</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/Relative_clause/zFSPHLwE">Relative clause</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/Relative_pronoun/55bNzVPY">Relative pronoun</a></li></ul>
<h2 id="notes-and-references">Notes and references</h2>
<h3>Notes</h3>

<h3>Citations</h3>

<h3>Sources</h3>
<ul><li>On the intonation question, see Beverly Colins and Inger M. Mees (2003), <i>Practical Phonetics and Phonology</i>, London: Routledge, <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 978-0415506496.</li></ul>

<h2 id="references">References</h2>

<ol>
<li id="fn:1"><p>Kordić, Snježana (1996), "Pronomina im Antezendenten und Restriktivität/Nicht-Restriktivität von Relativsätzen im Kroatoserbischen und Deutschen" [Pronouns in antecedents and restrictive/non-restrictive relative clauses in Serbo-Croatian and German] (PDF), in Suprun, Adam; Jachnow, Helmut (eds.), Slavjano-germanskie jazykovye paralleli/Slawisch-germanische Sprachparallelen, Sovmestnyj issledovatel'skij sbornik slavistov universitetov v Minske i Bochume (in German), Minsk: Belorusskij gosudarstvennyj universitet, p. 163, OCLC 637166830, archived (PDF) from the original on 25 September 2013, retrieved 24 October 2015 <a href="/wiki/Snje%C5%BEana_Kordi%C4%87" target="_blank">/wiki/Snje%C5%BEana_Kordi%C4%87</a> <a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:2"><p>In formal American English, the use of which as a restrictive pronoun is often considered to be incorrect. See That or which. <a href="/wiki/American_English" target="_blank">/wiki/American_English</a> <a href="#fnref:2" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
</ol>

Restrictiveness open-in-new

Restrictiveness