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

[MrPedantic]

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?

Not quite; rather, that "such that" is a reasonable explanatory paraphrase (though "that" is a conjunction, in the structure itself):

1. Who are you, that you set a price on your friendship?

Cf. Shakespeare's

2. Who is Silvia? What is she, / That all our swains commend her?

If we call the interrogative clause X, in this structure, and the that-clause Y, we can say that Y presents some notion or fact which justifies the asking of the (rhetorical) question in X.

Thus the "setting a price" justifies the scornful "Who are you?" ("Who do you think you are?") in #1; while the swains' commendations justify the admiring "What is she?" ("What kind of creature is she?") of #2.

Best wishes,

MrP

 

[AlJapone]

If we call the interrogative clause X, in this structure, and the that-clause Y, we can say that Y presents some notion or fact which justifies the asking of the (rhetorical) question in X.

Your comment gave me an 'aha moment.' I had realised 'that' has this usage:

conjunction
1 introducing a subordinate clause expressing a reason or cause:
he seemed pleased that I wanted to continue
From Oxford online dictionary

Nevertheless, I could not relate this to the original sentence; because I thought that the fact someone has a set of caracteristics cannot be cause nor reason of the person's Un-identity(who are you.)

But the fact can be a reason of the asking. Act, not content. Even though the two are almost indistinguishable in the asking.

Now I feel I can willingly brush off the absence of comma as some trifle historical event.
Thank you so much, MrPedantic.

Best wishes,


AlJapone

 

[TheParser]

Besides, who are you that you should be setting a price upon your friendship?
A sentence from On Friendship by A. Clutton-Brock

Dear Sirs.

I do not know what to make of 'that' in the above sentence. Please give me some advice to analyze this construction.

Best wishes,


AlJapone

***** NOT A TEACHER *****


AlJapone,


(1) I think (repeat: think) that I have exciting news to report!!!

(2) This thread drove me crazy for 24 hours because

I could not find a reference in my books about this admittedly

minor construction -- until I carefully read all the wonderful

answers in this thread. They gave me a clue to what I should look for in the

index of -- of course -- my 1985 edition of A Comprehensive

Grammar of the English Language.

(3) On page 1109 (in the chapter on "Semantic roles of

adverbial clauses"), the authors confirm many of the insightful

comments of the great posters in this thread.

(4) I quote Professors Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, and Svartvik:

That may introduce a final clause [of result] in interrogative

sentences: What have I done, that you should insult me?

(5) The esteemed professors then explain:

In interrogative ... sentences, that may introduce a result

clause that is related to the correlative so ... that comparative

clause ... except that the intensifier so is omitted.

(6) The professors remind us that:

The style is formal and archaic:

Do you know her intimately, that you presume to address

her in such a casual manner?

(7) This wonderful treasure of answers also says that:

Result clauses are disjuncts. (I think that we ordinary

lovers of grammar use the term "sentence adverbs.")

(8) Finally, before I had the sense to turn to this great book,

I had googled (without result), but did find this famous quotation

from the Bible

"Who are you that you fear mortal men?" -- Isaiah 51:12

(Here is another translation from a more "modern" Bible:

"So what right have you to fear mere mortal men?")

(9) Thank you for your great question. It forced this old

man to exercise his mind.


***** NOT A TEACHER *****