Question by forces_20, Forum member (June 1, 2011):
Good morning, Sir Carillo,
I feel the nostalgic eagernesss of posting grammar questions and other pecularities, so here I am again!
Sir, what do you call the combination of preposition and relative pronoun “which” such as “in which,” “on which,” “with which,” etc.? I am confident that I can use some of these forms in written composition and oral communication, but I know you can give a comprehensive explanation to give me a deeper understanding of them, as follows:
1. “on which”
2. “in which”
3. “of which”
4. “from which”
5. “with which”
6. “into which”
7. “for which”
Below are some sentences using them:
1. “Equilibrium is a situation in which the quantity of supply equals that of demand.”
2. “Price floor is the lowest price set by the government at which a producer can sell a good or service.”
3. “A reservoir of psychic from which they draw a positive outlook in life.”
4. “Words are pegs upon which we hang ideas.”
5. “Some writers base their fiction on actual events to which they add up invented characters, dialogue, settings, and plots.”
My reply to forces_20:
I am not aware of a specific term for the combination of prepositions and relative pronouns that you are asking about. Such grammatical structures as “on which,” “from which,” and “with which” are a formal way in written English for introducing a defining relative clause and linking it efficiently to a main clause that typically ends in a noun. This noun becomes the antecedent of the pronoun “which,” which then becomes the object of the preposition in the defining relative clause.
Joining a preposition and the relative pronoun “which” in this manner is a powerful grammatical device for combining ideas that would otherwise need to be said in two sentences. Consider the following sentences:
“Boracay is a white-sand beach. The hotel chain built a five-star resort-hotel on it.”
These two sentences can be combined into a single sentence using the prepositional form “on which,” as follows:
“Boracay is a white-sand beach on which the hotel chain built a five-star resort-hotel.”
When the relative clause after the noun refers to a place, of course, a perfectly acceptable alternative to “on which” as a combiner is the relative pronoun “where”:
“Boracay is a white-sand beach where the hotel chain built a five-start resort-hotel.”
In contrast, a misshapen, awkward-sounding sentence results when we attempt to combine those two sentences using the subordinating conjunction “that” instead:
“Boracay is a white-sand beach that the hotel chain built a five-star resort-hotel on.”
This grammatical construction with the preposition “on” at the tail end of the sentence is an example of what’s called preposition-stranding, which is frowned upon in formal written English. (Combining prepositions and pronouns in such forms as “in which” and “from which” is, in fact, meant to avoid such preposition-stranding in sentences.) Nowadays, however, preposition-stranding is widely used by native English speakers in colloquial situations, as in the following sentence:
Stranded preposition: “This is the chapter that passage was taken from.”
(Preposition not stranded: “This is the chapter from which that passage was taken.”)
Now, following the same pattern for the “on which” sentence that we analyzed above, the relative pronoun “which” can also be used in tandem with the prepositions “in,” “of,” “from,” “with,” “into,” or “for” to combine sentences, as follows:
Two-sentence construction: “That is the precise place. They found my missing engagement ring there.”
One-sentence construction: “That’s the precise place in which they found my missing engagement ring.”
(Alternative “where” construction: “That’s the precise place where they found my missing engagement ring.”)
Two-sentence construction: “They have chosen a law office. Atty. Cruz is a managing partner of it.”
One-sentence construction: “They have chosen a law office of which Atty. Cruz is a managing partner.”
(Alternative “where” construction: “They have chosen a law office where Atty. Cruz is a managing partner.”)
Now let’s reverse the process and analyze the two sentences you gave as examples for “at which” and “upon which” usage:
Your one-sentence construction: “Price floor is the lowest price set by the government at which a producer can sell a good or service.”
Its two-sentence equivalent: “Price floor is the lowest price set by the government for producers of a good or service. The producers can sell at that lowest set price.”
Your one-sentence construction: “Words are pegs upon which we hang ideas.”
Its two-sentence construction: “Words are pegs. We hang ideas upon them.”
At this point, of course, it would be logical to ask: Why bother using such combinations of preposition and relative pronoun as “in which” and “with which” when we could very well use simpler sentence-combining forms like “that,” “where,” and “when”? The reason is, of course, to find the most suitable and best-sounding ways to combine two or more ideas in one sentence—and the more grammatically correct ways to choose from, the better for both our written and spoken English.
