www0935
Joined: 14 Apr 2008
Posts: 173
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 Posted: Wed Mar 18, 2009 7:12 am Post subject: A question about a adjective clause |
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Please help me with the following question. Thanks.
China is the birthplace of kites, ___ kite-flying spread to Japan,Korea,Thailand and India.
A.from that B.from here C.from there D.from which
Which one is correct? Why? Can I use "from where"? |
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dragn
Joined: 17 Feb 2009
Posts: 450
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| Posted: Wed Mar 18, 2009 11:57 pm Post subject: |
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Hi,
| Quote: |
China is the birthplace of kites, ___ kite-flying spread to Japan,Korea,Thailand and India.
A.from that B.from here C.from there D.from which |
None of the above. As long as you have this basic structure, you have a problem:
China is the birthplace of kites, from ___ kite-flying spread to Japan, Korea, Thailand and India. (X)
I don't see any possible way to make this correct because it is clear from the context that the dependent clause needs to refer back to China, not to kites.
One way to fix things is to make the second clause an independent clause:
China is the birthplace of kites; from there, kite-flying spread to Japan, Korea, Thailand and India.
Notice that the semicolon (a colon [:] or a dash [--] would also work acceptably well) allows the second clause to stand on its own. Now from there is an adverbial phrase, and putting a comma after it improves the readability somewhat, although it's not absolutely required. The point is that the reader knows you are referring to China, but you've removed the grammatical need to refer directly back to the preceding noun.
Another possibility is to shift China to the end of the first clause where it can be the noun the dependent clause refers back to:
The birthplace of kites is China, from where kite-flying spread to Japan, Korea, Thailand and India.
Now you can use from where. Some people might accept from which, but I don't like it here. Sounds a bit awkward to me.
As always, open to other ideas and hoping this helps.
dragn |
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