Author Topic: Omitted what?  (Read 5717 times)

Miss Mae

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Omitted what?
« on: December 19, 2013, 01:23:42 PM »
I could only guess that the words are and the are missing in here. Right?

Some staffed foreign NGOs, often in the area of women's health, which organizations the Taliban permitted to continue. (Gayle Tzemach Lennon, "The Dressmaker of Khair Khana")


Joe Carillo

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Re: Omitted what?
« Reply #1 on: December 19, 2013, 11:48:04 PM »
No, Miss Mae, I’m afraid you didn’t get it right.

Lifted out of its context, the following sentence does look and sound as if it’s missing the linking verb “are” and the article “the,” giving the impression of being run-on, truncated, and nonsensical: “Some staffed foreign NGOs, often in the area of women's health, which organizations the Taliban permitted to continue.” But I was able to trace that sentence back to its source, an excerpt from Gayle Tzemach Lennon’s book The Dressmaker of Khair Khana, and have determined that it’s a grammatically airtight sentence.

Quote
The more I dug around, the more I realized that Kamila was only one of many young women who had worked throughout years of the Taliban regime. Driven by the need to earn money for their families and loved ones when Kabul’s economy collapsed under the weight of war and mismanagement, they turned small openings into large opportunities and invented ways around the rules. As women throughout the world always had, they found a way forward for the sake of their families. They learned how to work the system and even how to thrive within it.

Some staffed foreign NGOs, often in the area of women’s health, which organizations the Taliban permitted to continue. Doctors could still work. And so could women who helped other women to learn basic hygiene and sanitation practices. Some taught in underground schools, leading courses for girls and women in everything from Microsoft Windows to math and Dari, as well as the Holy Q’uran… (italicization mine)

Now, in the excerpt above, note that the indefinite pronoun “some” that starts the second paragraph actually refers to working women in Kabul who are described in the first paragraph; in effect, the author uses “some” as an intrinsic or implicit paragraph transition—a summary word for the major operative idea (“working women in Kabul”) of the preceding paragraph. (Refer to my posting on “Basic and advanced techniques for doing paragraph transitions.”) The transition word “some” could be rendered in full—and make the sense clearer—as “some working women in Kabul,” but the author didn’t do so as a stylistic decision, trusting that the reader would clearly understand its sense from the preceding paragraph.

Assuming though that the author had used “some working women in Kabul,” the sentence would have read as follows: “Some working women in Kabul staffed foreign NGOs, often in the area of women’s health, which organizations the Taliban permitted to continue.”

It’s tempting to think that “are” and “the” would be needed to make the main clause of that sentence read correctly as “Some working women in Kabul are the staff of foreign NGOs,” or, in the elliptical or shortened form, as “Some are the staff of foreign NGOs.” However, it is evident that the author used “staff” as a transitive verb that means “to serve as a staff member of,” in which case “foreign NGOs” becomes a direct object of the past-tense “staffed.” That main clause therefore wouldn’t need “are” and “the” at all, whether in the full form “Some working women in Kabul staffed foreign NGOs” or in the shorter form “Some staffed foreign NGOs.”

There has therefore been no inadvertent omission of “are” and “the” in that clause, which is grammatically and semantically aboveboard in every way.
« Last Edit: December 19, 2013, 11:52:18 PM by Joe Carillo »

Miss Mae

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Re: Omitted what?
« Reply #2 on: December 20, 2013, 06:16:03 PM »
I had thought are and the should have been in -

Some staffed foreign NGOs, often in the area of women's health, which are the organizations the Taliban permitted to continue.

What must be the reason I have found it grammatically and semantically false?

Joe Carillo

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Re: Omitted what?
« Reply #3 on: December 20, 2013, 07:12:39 PM »
I don’t really see anything grammatically and semantically wrong with the syntax of the relative clause in the following sentence:

“Some staffed foreign NGOs, often in the area of women’s health, which organizations the Taliban permitted to continue.”

The words “are” and “the” are not needed in the qualifying phrase “which organizations the Taliban permitted to continue.” In fact, the presence of those words in your suggested version gives the wrong impression that foreign NGOs are specifically the only organizations permitted by the Taliban to continue in Afghanistan. Nothing in the excerpt from the author’s narrative warrants that conclusion.

I think the reason you thought that something was amiss in that qualifying phrase is that it’s apparently a British English construction meant for British English-speaking readers. As I pointed out in a posting about differences in American English and British English, the two differ in their use of “that” and “which” as relative pronoun or subordinating conjunction (“Why it's tough choosing between ‘that’ and ‘which’ to link relative clauses”). I won’t go at length about their differences in usage here; suffice it to say that in American English, that sentence would use “that” instead of “which” in the following manner:

“Some staffed foreign NGOs, often in the area of women’s health, that the Taliban has permitted to continue.”

In British English, that sentence can also be alternatively constructed using “which” as follows:

“Some staffed foreign NGOs, often in the area of women’s health, which the Taliban permitted to continue.”

So I’d say that there’s nothing wrong with the grammar and semantics of the original sentence in both its main clause and modifying relative clause. It’s simply that the author wrote it using the British English Standard for a publication primarily targeting UK readers.

Miss Mae

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Re: Omitted what?
« Reply #4 on: December 20, 2013, 08:42:33 PM »
 :(