a relative clause or an adverbial one

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diamondcutter

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There are other sports which you can play in any season. In England and most of Europe the football season starts in the autumn, when the summer finishes. People play it in the autumn, winter and spring. Football is also played in the summer when the World Cup and other special tournaments are on.

(Kid’s Box 5, Caroline Nixon, Michael Tomlinson, CUP)

In the last sentence above, I wonder if the when-clause is a relative one or an adverbial one.
 

diamondcutter

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I am inclined to think that the when-clause is a relative clause. What do you say?
 

PaulMatthews

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I am inclined to think that the when-clause is a relative clause. What do you say?


Football is also played in the summer, when the World Cup and other special tournaments are on.

I agree with you. "When" is anaphoric to "summer".

"When" is functioning as an adjunct of time in the relative clause.
 

Phaedrus

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Football is also played in the summer, when the World Cup and other special tournaments are on.

I think the adverbial-clause parsing of the "when"-clause is also possible and maybe even more natural than the relative-clause parsing.

The "when"-clause can be viewed as a nonrestrictive adjunct of the prepositional phrase "in the summer," playing the same role as the PP.

On this parsing, the "when"-clause and the "in"-PP can change places, the "in"-PP becoming a nonrestrictive adjunct of the adverbial "when"-clause:

Football is also played when the World Cup and other special tournaments are on, namely, in the summer.

If the OP really meant not to include the comma, a restrictive adverbial parsing is also possible, specifying when in the summer football is also played.

In that case (the restrictive reading), both the "when"-clause and the "in"-PP would be adjuncts of the VP and, again, would be reversible:

Football is also played when the World Cup and other special tournaments are on in the summer.
 

PaulMatthews

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Football is also played in the summer, when the World Cup and other special tournaments are on.

Looking at it again, I think there are three possible analyses:

[1] "When" is not anaphoric to "summer", and the underlined expression is thus a PP in a fused relative construction ("on occasions when the World Cup and other special tournaments are on") functioning as a temporal adjunct in clause structure. (note that I take "when" to be a preposition).

Since the PP "in the summer" is also an adjunct the sentence would then have two temporal adjuncts in clause structure. This would make sense because the two PPs are reversible.

[2] "When" is anaphoric, so the underlined expression is a supplementary relative clause with "in the summer" as antecedent/anchor.

[3] If the comma is removed the underlined expression is a modifier within the PP, thus: "Football is also played [in the summer when the World Cup and other special tournaments are on]".
 

jutfrank

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[1] "When" is not anaphoric to "summer", and the underlined expression is thus a PP in a fused relative construction ("on occasions when the World Cup and other special tournaments are on") functioning as a temporal adjunct in clause structure. (note that I take "when" to be a preposition).

Since the PP "in the summer" is also an adjunct the sentence would then have two temporal adjuncts in clause structure. This would make sense because the two PPs are reversible.

Yes, that's the correct interpretation. The idea is that football is only played in certain parts of certain summers. In other words:

It isn't played in the summer at all in a non-World Cup year.
It isn't played in the summer in a World Cup year outside of the two weeks that the World Cup is on.
 
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