These are the big knives he used to kill his wife.

I am trying to explain the meaning of restrictive clause of relative pronouns to my students. I’ve made up these sentences in bold and try to explain their meanings from the point of the view of English grammar. Are my interpretations correctly expressing the ideas?

Example 1

He has been confirmed to be the suspect. These are the big knives he used to kill his wife.

=> Among the big knives in the world, these are the ones he used to kill his wife. The clause “he used to kill his wife” separates these items from the other big knives in the world.

Example 2

Several knives of different sizes were found on the scene. These are the big ones they used in the conflict last night.

=>Among the knives they used in the conflict last night, these are the big knives. The adjective “big” separates these big knives from the other knives of different sizes found on the scene.

Am I right about the meaning of these two sentences?

MichaelLu2000 said:

I am trying to explain the meaning of restrictive clause of relative pronouns to my students.

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Why haven't you told us before that you're a teacher? That fact certainly would have influenced all the answers I've given you.

MichaelLu2000 said:

restrictive clause of relative pronouns

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You mean 'defining relative clauses'.

MichaelLu2000 said:

Example 1

He has been confirmed to be the suspect. These are the big knives he used to kill his wife.

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It's a poor sentence, not least because it's ambiguous. The two interpretations are:

1) He used multiple knives. They were big.
2) He used knives of different sizes. These are the big ones.

Interpretation 1 is the most likely, where 'big' is descriptive, not restrictive, simply describing the knives and not defining them. With such meagre context, nobody would imagine he used a variety of sizes of knife. It's already unusual enough to use more than one knife to kill someone. Furthermore, why would a reporter trivialise the seriousness of the crime by focusing on classifying the size of the murder weapons. It's a silly example.

MichaelLu2000 said:

Example 2

Several knives of different sizes were found on the scene. These are the big knives they used in the conflict last night.

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This isn't ambiguous since you've deliberately stated in the first sentence that there are multiple classes of knife. The word 'big' is restrictive here (it classifies which ones you're talking about), not descriptive.

@MichaelLu2000 I suggest you edit your member profile so that your member type shows "English teacher". As jutfrank said, that would make a difference to the kind of answers we provide you.

jutfrank said:

It's a poor sentence, not least because it's ambiguous. The two interpretations are:

1) He used multiple knives. They were big.
2) He used knives of different sizes. These are the big ones.

Interpretation 1 is the most likely, where 'big' is descriptive, not restrictive, simply describing the knives and not defining them. With such meagre context, nobody would imagine he used a variety of sizes of knife. It's already unusual enough to use more than one knife to kill someone. Furthermore, why would a reporter trivialise the seriousness of the crime by focusing on classifying the size of the murder weapons. It's a silly example.



This isn't ambiguous since you've deliberately stated in the first sentence that there are multiple classes of knife. The word 'big' is restrictive here (it classifies which ones you're talking about), not descriptive.

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I read your analysis, and I think it's very good. I try to break these sentences down, and I've edited the second example because I think repeating the word "knives" is a little weird.

For example 1,

"He has been confirmed to be the suspect. These are the big knives he used to kill his wife."

"Knives in the world"=>"Big [knives in the world]"=>"[Big knives] he used to kill his wife"

For Example 2

Several knives of different sizes were found on the scene. These are the big ones they used in the conflict last night.

Knives in the world=>[ones] they used in the conflict last night=>big [ones they used in the conflict last night]

Bolded parts are the parts that separate items from a larger group. Do you think I've broken them down correctly?

Please do as you were asked in post #4 before expecting answers to follow-up questions.

a) These are the [big] knives he used to kill his wife

The word 'big' is purely descriptive and non-defining, and so can be removed without changing the meaning.

b) These are the [big knives] he used to kill his wife

The word 'big' is defining, and so cannot be detached from 'knives' as it's essential to the meaning.


(Please respond to the request in post #6. Thanks.)

jutfrank said:

a) These are the [big] knives he used to kill his wife

The word 'big' is purely descriptive and non-defining, and so can be removed without changing the meaning.

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I think the restrictive clause "he used to kill his wife" describes the whole phrase of "big knives" here.
In other words, these are big knives, and they are used to kill his wife.

jutfrank said:

b) These are the [big knives] he used to kill his wife

The word 'big' is defining, and so cannot be detached from 'knives' as it's essential to the meaning.

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I think in this case, the restrictive clause "he used to kill his wife" describes only the noun "knives", and the defining adjective "big" further singles out particular ones.
In other words, here are some knives he used to kill his wife, and these are the "big ones" among them, implying there might be some other knives of smaller sizes.

jutfrank said:

(Please respond to the request in post #6. Thanks.)

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I've already edited it.

Do I understand what you mean correctly? Are my graphics correct?

MichaelLu2000 said:

Do I understand what you mean correctly?

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Not quite, no.

MichaelLu2000 said:

Are my graphics correct?

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The second one is but the first one, though logical, isn't, as far as I'm concerned.

For the first one, draw just two circles: 'knives in the world' and then inside it 'knives he used to kill his wife'. I'm saying that the word 'big' in the first sentence does not classify the knives in any way. It's just descriptive, so it doesn't have its own circle.

Don't try and understand all adjectives as classifying. Yes, you can say that the total set of knives in the world is divided definitively into big knives and non-big knives, but that's not what your first sentence is doing. In that sentence, there are only two kinds of knives—those he used to kill his wife and all the others. It just so happens that the ones he used were big. In other words, 'big' merely describes the knives, not the kind of knife.

In the second sentence, the word 'big' is classifying—'big knives' does count as a subset of all knives, so it has its own circle.

Let me know if that's still not clear.