Besides, who are you that you should be setting a price upon your friendship?

[AlJapone]

The word "that" is not always a relative pronoun equivalent to some other (pro)noun, explicit or implied.

Its English usage is considerably more complex.

We eat, that we might live.

Would that it were, that the other could be.

In both of these the subordinate non-restrictive that-clause is very similar to the ones in the "who is X, that..." construction: similar enough that ( ) I think a single analysis should be made. In which case, the that-clause is clearly adverbial.

Note the one thing such that-clauses often have in common: their verb is subjunctive, or modally augmented, implying irreality, here one of purpose. (I said manner earlier. That was a mistake.)

I think it could be considered the absolute construction with some unstated, yet understood elements, such as 'wishing,' preceding the conjunction that when the that-clause is separated by a comma.


I quote a part of the definition of that by Oxford online dictionary.

conjunction
1 introducing a subordinate clause
[usually with modal] expressing a purpose, hope, or intention:
we pray that the coming year may be a year of peace
I eat that I may live

The last of its examples has no comma. Interesting.

Best wishes,


AlJapone

[abaka]

Absolutely not. An absolute construction can not have a finite verb.

All things being equal, gold is more precious than silver.

That said, I still think she's the one I want to marry.

Their children at last in bed, they discussed their impending divorce.

Who are you, that veil over your head?

[AlJapone]

"Absolutely not."

Dear abaka,

It looks like I have to take back my words again. I misunderstood about the construction, or, rather, didn't put enough effort, in the first place, nessesary to understand it; ashamed! I am thankful for your taking the time to bother yourself to correct my ignorance.
I wrongly thought the main verb used as non-finite, like the unstated 'wishing' in my example, was enough to call it the absolute construction. I should not have smattered.
Let me repeat, thank you so much, abaka.

Best wishes,


AlJapone

Now after rereading my last post, 'wishing' was impertinant to my argument, maybe something like 'our wish being' might have be more apt. Of course this doesn't change the fact I misunderstood about the absolute.

[abaka]

^Please don't apologize so much. I dare say many of us "natives" would be worse at most of the languages the "learners" speak than any of the learners are at English (my attempts at 日本語 being particularly bad). I made an automatic pun on the word "absolute" (as in construction) but it probably came across as plain rudeness.

[AlJapone]

^Please don't apologize so much. I dare say many of us "natives" would be worse at most of the languages the "learners" speak than any of the learners are at English (my attempts at ??? being particularly bad). I made an automatic pun on the word "absolute" (as in construction) but it probably came across as plain rudeness.

No, in fact, I had realised it was a pun, and originaly, I intended to put a smiley after your quote; however, I thought better of it because it occured to me that it might not be quite civil for someone who had commited a mistake due to his lazyness to employ a jocular tone in his reply written to convey his gratitude. So I just removed the smily before posting my last message, which might have produced some incongruity in tone that I failed to notice. So it would be my fault rather than yours if there were any; in any case, please do not give it any more thought. Thank you.

Best wishes,


AlJapone

[Frank Antonson]

I am a little puzzled by some of your comments -- or, perhaps too lazy to think deeply about them; but I would like to contribute the idea that "that" can be short for "so that", in which case (at least in American terms) it would be a subordinating conjunction. Such is not the case in the original post.

[MrPedantic]

... Who are you, such that you should be setting a price upon your friendship? ...

This is the correct answer, to my mind.

MrP

[AlJapone]

I am a little puzzled by some of your comments -- or, perhaps too lazy to think deeply about them; but I would like to contribute the idea that "that" can be short for "so that", in which case (at least in American terms) it would be a subordinating conjunction. Such is not the case in the original post.

I agree with you. It is one of my reasons for my mention of the absolute. To be explicit, I thought that the original example should not be grouped together with abaka's examples.

At the moment, I suspect that the original is based on no grammatical grounds, rather it is based on the prestige of the Bible; where you will find many similar examples. If that is the case, it would be pointless to try to analyse it.
However, I know nothing about the history of English translations of the Bible, so this is just my "uneducated" guess. I'm lazy again!

Al

[AlJapone]

... Who are you, such that you should be setting a price upon your friendship? ...

This is the correct answer, to my mind.

MrP

Hello MrPedantic,
I am not sure whether you are talking about abaka's interpretation or abaka's view on syntactic structure.
Is it right to think you mean that the construction used in the original is an accepted syntactic variation of a construction using ",such that" as in the above quote?

Best wishes,


AlJapone

[Frank Antonson]

I believe that we are down to nuances.

The sentence could be interpreted various ways.