192 Chapter II Relative clauses,. The compound forms in [ii] do not occur in the other relative constructions, and
nor, in Standard English, does what.
" On the other hand, who, whom and which occur in the fused construction only
under very limited conditions (usually with verbs like choose, want, like, as in
I'll invite who I want). For example, in Present-day English who could not
replace whoever in [l9i]: *Who said that was trying to mislead you.What as determinative
The what of [19ii] is a pronoun, but what can also occur as a determinative:
[21] What mistakes she made were very minor.The fusion here involves what mistakes. On the one hand, what is determiner and
mistakes is head of the NP functioning as subject of were very minor -note that
were agrees with plural mistakes. On the other hand, what mistakes is object of
made in the relative clause. Mistakes thus has a role in both the subordinate clause
and the matrix clause: we understand that she made some mistakes but those mis
takes were very minor.
Determinative what also implies a relatively small number or amount: [21]
implies that she made only a small number of mistakes.
Fused relatives and interrogative content clauses
There is a considerable amount of overlap between fused relatives and interrogative
content clauses. Compare:
[22] I really liked what she wrote.
11 I wonder what she wrote.
1Il What she wrote is unclear.[fused relative]
[interrogative content clause]
[ambiguous: relative or interrogative]
The verb like does not license an interrogative complement, so what she wrote in
[i] is unambiguously a fused relative. The sentence can again be glossed with
non-fused that which: "I really liked that which she wrote".
Wo nder, by contrast, licenses an interrogative complement, but does not nor
mally allow an NP object. What she wrote in [ii] is therefore unambiguously an
interrogative clause: "I wonder about the answer to the question 'What did she
write?'".
Unclear, however, licenses both an interrogative and an NP subject, and [iii] can
be interpreted in either way. The fused relative interpretation is "That which she
wrote is unclear" - a letter or report, perhaps. In the interrogative interpretation,
what is unclear is the answer to the question 'What did she write?'. On this inter
pretation the implication is that I'm not sure what it was that she wrote.