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Zero and Reduced Relatives

Since the noun phrase to which a post-modifyng relative clause refers is right in front of it, the relative pronoun (or adverb) itself serves mainly as a warning sign that what follows is some kind of dependent clause. Standard English allows us to delete that warning sign when relative clause is restrictive and the pronoun is not its subject. Some grammarians speak of such constructions as having a zero relative pronoun.

The omission of the relative pronoun in such cases is considered a kind of that-DELETION, since that is used only with restrictive relative. clauses. As a writer, though, remember that it can apply to any relative clause, including those headed by relative adverbs (which can't be replace by that): A noun phrase like the girl who(m) I married can almost always be shortened to the girl I married and a phrase like the place where I was born can be shortened to the place I was born. As a general rule, if the meaning remains clear, shorter is better, but it is a judgment call, as some of the sample sentences below may show. Which of these would sound better to you with a relative pronoun reinserted?

(1) Barberry plants can form a border no intruder will relish.

(2) Their fine thorns exact a price trespassers must pay.

(3) You might consider the pygmy barberry the Boerner Botanical Gardens in Milwaukee uses as a hedge border for their annual gardens.

(4) We have had problems with barberries we've planted in clay soil.

(5) Come and try the Banbury Buns I baked myself.

(6) The Barbary Pirates captured many Christian slaves they then sold in the Moroccan slave-markets.

Diagramming Relative Clauses w/o Relative Pronouns. In diagramming clauses that have undergone That-DELETION, we will assume that WH-MOVEMENT has taken place, moving the relative to the specifier position in the CP clause, where it is replaced with a zero relative. The zero relative is represented by a zero, and the tree otherwise looks just like the one we drew earlier for normal "Relative Phrases":

Reduced Relative Clauses and Other Modifiers in NPs. When the relative pronoun, whether restrictive or not, is followed by a form of be, whether as a main verb or auxiliary verb, both the pronoun and the form of be can be deleted. This process is sometimes called WHis-DELETION, and it can be thought of as accounting for the other postmodifiers one find in noun phrases. The results are not relative clauses, but we can think of them as reduced relatives:

(7)	(a) The girl who is in the corner danced.
	(b) The girl in the corner danced.
(8)	(a) The man who was hit by the car laughed.
	(b) The man hit by the car laughed.
(9)	(a) The team which was washing the car quit.
	(b) The team washing the car quit.
(10)	(a) The wagon which is outside is broken.
(b) The wagon outside is broken.

If one assumes a later movement process, relative clauses can also be used to account for many of the optional premodifiers in noun phrases as well, including most adjectives (11), participles (12), and even the occasional locative (13) or prepositional phrase (14):

(11)	(a) The professor, who was silly, tripped over his own feet.
	(b) The silly professor tripped over his own feet.
(12)	(a) The lake, which is rapidly evaporating, may be in danger.
	(b) The rapidly evaporating lake may be in danger.
(13)	(a) The hall which was upstairs was dimly lit.
	(b) The upstairs hall was dimly lit.
(14)	(a) The interview, which was by the book, went well.
	(b) The by-the-book interview went well.

Dangling Modifiers. Non-restrictive participial (or participle) phrases which are reduced relatives can also be moved to the very front of the noun phrase and set off by commas. Make sure if you do this, that the NP is the underlying subject of the participial phrase:

(15) Rapidly evaporating, the lake may be in danger.

Where the participle phrases apply to other NPs in the sentence--or even to some "understood" NP out of the sentence as in (16)--we get dangling modifiers. These will amuse any reader who notices them, but they won't thank you. Notice that any attempt to move the following modifiers back into relative clauses is absurd. Trying to do so is one way of checking to make sure that such openings are not dangling modifiers:

(16) ?Looking closely, the errors were obvious.

(17) ?Talking all night on the phone, I asked my daughter to hang up.

(18) ?Hit by a speeding car, I picked up the dead deer.

Just for the Record: Nouns as Premodifiers. One can think of many premodifiers in a noun phrase as originating as reduced relatives and then moved in front of the head noun. This does not apply to numbers, which is another reason for classifying them with the determiners: Notice the difference between these pairs. An adjective can be placed back in a relative clause, but a number cannot.:

(19)	(a) The silly professor fell down.
	(b) The professor, who was silly, fell down.
(20)	(a) The seven professors fell down.
	(b) *The professors, who were seven, fell down.

The same is true for noun modifiers, which is why many linguists prefer to count them as parts of compound nouns rather than as premodifiers:

(21)	(a) It's good enough for government work.
	(b) *It's good enough for work, which is governmen.
(22)	(a) He went into office work.
	(b) He went into work which was office.
(23)	(a) This is an example of student work.
	(b) This is an example of work, which is student.

How Much of This Will be on the Test? You need to be able to recognize when you have a product of that-DELETION or a reduced relative. You should know what is meant by a zero relative. WHis-DELETION and compound nouns may come up again, but they are less important.