How to interprete "which it wll be"

[andrewg927]

If I want to say he is not guilty, I would say "if he is not guilty, which he is not, he will be set free." When you use "which he is", it sounds more like you think he is guilty.

 

[PaulMatthews]

I'm a bit lost here. What boils down to what? Of course it's the semantic anchor. We know it is, don't we?



What kind evidence do you mean? "Okay" in what way?

Trump's phrasing was not carefully considered, and thus doesn't make complete sense when analysed word for word, although of course the context made it quite understandable. The supplementary relative clause was clearly intended as a kind of parenthesis to the main thought. He might have said, more intelligibly:

If the wall is not built (, which will not happen,) ...
If the wall is not built (, and it will be,) ...
If the wall is not built (, though it will be,) ...

Wake up jutfrank! I was obviously talking about the grammaticality of Trump's sentence. And I'm aware of the nature of the supplementary relative.

 

[PaulMatthews]

A somewhat parallel case:

I think it's unclear, both in this case and in Trump's tweet, whether the antecedent of "which" includes "not."

It clearly isn't, or at least it wasn't intended to be. I covered that point in my answer #26 by referring to "which" as being anaphoric to the UNnegated element in the protasis clause.

 

[jutfrank]

Wake up jutfrank! I was obviously talking about the grammaticality of Trump's sentence. And I'm aware of the nature of the supplementary relative.

Paul, don't underestimate my ignorance, even when awake.

My thought process when reading your post was: "Why is PaulMatthews and his colleague asking 'whether the supplementary relative clause can have the UNnegated main content of the protasis clause as its semantic anchor'? Isn't DT's utterance proof that it can? What more evidence do you need?"

Obviously I don't think like a grammarian.

(The second part of the post was meant to try to 'enlighten' you, by the way. More addressed at DT than anything.)