# hours < that> proved an education



## kazuhiko fudaba

The following sentence is in the article of NY Times: 'In Dropping Health Vote, Trump Swallowed Need for a Showdown'.

The demise of the American Health Care Act played out in a tense 24 hours *that* White House and congretional officials said
proved a political education for Trump and his top advisers on the promise and peril of governing, even with unified Republican
control.

Question) I think the bold word '*that'* is a relative pronoun. 
               Does the relative pronoun *'that'* indicate  the demise of the American Health CAre Act?

Thank you
K.Fudaba


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## andrewg927

"that" here refers to the entire clause "the demise of the American Health Care Act played out in a tense 24 hours"


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## Florentia52

I disagree. I think "that" refers to the "tense 24 hours."


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## andrewg927

Well, whatever that was, it was quite an education for Trump. To me, it meant the entire episode and not just the tense 24 hours.


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## SevenDays

kazuhiko fudaba said:


> The following sentence is in the article of NY Times: 'In Dropping Health Vote, Trump Swallowed Need for a Showdown'.
> 
> The demise of the American Health Care Act played out in a tense 24 hours *that* White House and congretional officials said
> proved a political education for Trump and his top advisers on the promise and peril of governing, even with unified Republican
> control.
> 
> Question) I think the bold word '*that'* is a relative pronoun.
> Does the relative pronoun *'that'* indicate  the demise of the American Health CAre Act?
> 
> Thank you
> K.Fudaba



Rewrite the sentence, putting "that" in its function of direct object of "said," and you'll see the antecedent:

_White House and congressional officials said __that__ proved a political education for Trump and his top advisers
White House and congressional officials said the demise of the American Health Care Act proved a political education for Trump and his top advisers_

The antecedent of "that" is a noun phrase ("the demise of the American Health Care Act"). "Played out in a tense 24 hours" is not part of the noun phrase; it is the _predicate_ of the noun phrase in the original example (where the noun phrase functions as subject of the sentence).


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## Hildy1

I agree with Florentia: the antecedent of the relative pronoun "that" is "a tense 24 hours".

_The demise of the American Health Care Act played out in a tense 24 hours *which*, *according to* White House and congre*ss*ional officials, proved a political education for Trump and his top advisers..._


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## karlalou

I think  "The demise" is the antecedent of 'that'.

The demise (of the American Health Care Act played out in a tense 24 hours) *that *White House and congressional officials said [:subject]/[predicate:] proved a political education for Trump and his top advisers ...

The part "of the American Health Care Act played out in a tense 24 hours" is modifying "The demise".


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## RedwoodGrove

It could also be that it is a poorly written sentence. Florentia's interpretation _should_ be correct, whether or not it was the author's intention.


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## Hildy1

RedwoodGrove said:


> It could also be that it is a poorly written sentence.



We can probably all agree on that!


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## andrewg927

RedwoodGrove said:


> It could also be that it is a poorly written sentence.



Couldn't have said it better myself.


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## karlalou

SevenDays said:


> The antecedent of "that" is a noun phrase ("the demise of the American Health Care Act").


My view is basically the same as yours. I couldn't get to mine without reading yours.


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## kazuhiko fudaba

karlalou said:


> I think  "The demise" is the antecedent of 'that'.
> 
> The demise (of the American Health Care Act played out in a tense 24 hours) *that *White House and congressional officials said [:subject]/[predicate:] proved a political education for Trump and his top advisers ...
> 
> The part "of the American Health Care Act played out in a tense 24 hours" is modifying "The demise".



Thank you for your comment.
I understand the demise is the antecedent of that and the part of the American--- is the adjective phrase to modify the demise.
And *'White House and congressional officials said'* is an inserted clause, isn't it?


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## wandle

kazuhiko fudaba said:


> The demise of the American Health Care Act played out in a tense 24 hours *that* White House and congressional officials said proved a political education for Trump and his top advisers on the promise and peril of governing, even with unified Republican control.



The antecedent of 'that' can only be 'a tense 24 hours'. The sentence is dense (in the sense of being packed with meaning and varied in construction) but is perfectly correct. The officials were saying that that period of 24 hours taught Trump a lesson.

For the construction, compare: 'The children were playing in a bouncy castle that inspectors said proved an object lesson for the owners on the benefits and dangers of operating such things.'


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## SevenDays

karlalou said:


> My view is basically the same as yours. I couldn't get to mine without reading yours.



It follows, then, that the antecedent doesn't always _precede_ the relative pronoun; sometimes it appears _earlier _in the text, as is the case in this sentence. The relative pronoun isn't just a syntactic marker, it's also semantic in nature; _the demise of the Health Care Act_ *is *what proved to be a "political education" (it shows that governing is not easy, even when you have_ total power_), not "a tense 24 hours" (after all, politicians have "tense 24 hours" all the time; nothing unusual or educational about that). 

If you wanted to focus on _structure_ and not meaning, consider this: "a tense 24 hours" is a _noun phrase_, but a noun phrase _attached _to a _prepositional phrase_ ("in a tense 24 hours"), and a prepositional phrase can't the equivalent of the relative pronoun "that;" the equivalent of "that" must be a noun phrase (because both function as direct object), and "the demise of the American Health Care Act" *is *a noun phrase. And you could also say that the antecedent of "that" is the simple noun phrase "the demise" (without the modifying phrase "of ...").

All this said, the whole sentence could have been rewritten to make it more reader friendly.



kazuhiko fudaba said:


> Thank you for your comment.
> I understand the demise is the antecedent of that and the part of the American--- is the adjective phrase to modify the demise.
> And *'White House and congressional officials said'* is an inserted clause, isn't it?



_Inside _the relative clause, "White House and Congressional officials" functions as _subject_ of the relative clause, and "said" as _verb_.


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## wandle

SevenDays said:


> (after all, politicians have "tense 24 hours" all the time; nothing unusual or educational about that).


The point is that the author defines this particular tense 24-hr period in the relative clause that immediately follows: the message of the sentence is precisely that this 24-hr period taught the administration a lesson.

 There is no way to take 'that' with any expression earlier in the sentence. It has to go with the immediately preceding noun phrase. It is not allowed to 'jump' over it.


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## karlalou

We might be seeing the natives' instinct in andrewg927 of #2 or Hildy1 of #6, and this kind of thing is what I expect from natives. 

Consulting my grammar book, I've found that when the antecedent of a relative pronoun is a very specific noun, such as someone's name, the non-identifying relative clause (the '*, which*' style) is favored. So, I see that, if rewriting is an option, it would be like these:

The demise of the American Health Care Act played out in a tense 24 hours_, which is said by White House and congressional officials, _proved a political education for Trump and his top advisers ...
Or
White House and congressional officials _*said the demise* _of the American Health Care Act_, which (was?) played out in a tense 24 hours,_ _*proved *_a political education for Trump and his top advisers ...

But ... 'a tense 24 hours'?
White House said a tense 24 hours ... what?


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## Myridon

The White House said that what happened in that tense 24 hour period proved (to be) a political education for Trump.
"24 hour period" represents the events that occurred within it.


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## karlalou

Myridon said:


> The White House said that what happened in that tense 24 hour period proved (to be) a political education for Trump.
> "24 hour period" represents the events that occurred within it.


I see. Thanks. It seems whole lots of rewriting is necessary, and does it keep the quality of the NY Times?
I still like to choose 'the demise' over 'a tense 24 hours' as the antecedent of 'that'.


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## Myridon

[The demise (subject)] [played out (verb)] [in a tense 24 hours that <whatever> (complement).]
Grammatically speaking, a "that" clause that is inside the complement would not "crossover" to the other side of the verb to attach to the subject.


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## SevenDays

karlalou said:


> We might be seeing the natives' instinct in andrewg927 of #2 or Hildy1 of #6, and this kind of thing is what I expect from natives.
> 
> Consulting my grammar book, I've found that when the antecedent of a relative pronoun is a very specific noun, such as someone's name, the non-identifying relative clause (the '*, which*' style) is favored. So, I see that, if rewriting is an option, it would be like these:
> 
> The demise of the American Health Care Act played out in a tense 24 hours_, which is said by White House and congressional officials, _proved a political education for Trump and his top advisers ...
> Or
> White House and congressional officials _*said the demise* _of the American Health Care Act_, which (was?) played out in a tense 24 hours,_ _*proved *_a political education for Trump and his top advisers ...
> 
> But ... 'a tense 24 hours'?
> White House said a tense 24 hours ... what?



Exactly; with a non-restrictive relative clause (comma + which) there's no precise noun antecedent of the relative pronoun, because _everything _becomes the antecedent:
_The demise of the American Health Care Act played out in a tense 24 hours*, which *the White House and congressional officials said proved a political education for Trump and his  top advisors _...


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## karlalou

Myridon said:


> [The demise (subject)] [played out (verb)] [in a tense 24 hours that <whatever> (complement).]
> Grammatically speaking, a "that" clause that is inside the complement would not "crossover" to the other side of the verb to attach to the subject.


So, your 'a tense 24 hours' is following 'in' that it's just a modifier.


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## PaulQ

"The demise of the American Health Care Act played out in a tense 24 hours *that* White House and congressional officials said
proved a political education for Trump" can be reduced/simplified to:

{[The demise [[that was] played out in 24 hours]]} *that* the White House said proved *to be *a lesson for Trump.

You will see that there is no main clause. "*proved*" is misplaced and  *to be * is required:

{[The demise [[that was] played out in 24 hours]]} that proved*,* the White House said, *to be *a lesson for Trump.

It seems that there was a mistake when that sentence was altered.


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## wandle

It is astonishing to see how much misconstruction of one sentence has been produced by a mere handful of contributors.
Forgive me for speaking so bluntly, but the sentence is perfectly valid as it stands and requires no rewriting.

I gave a parallel sentence in post 13 to illustrate the construction. I have now edited that to make the parallel clearer.
Let me set the two sentences side by side with highlighting to bring it out.

'The demise of the American Health Care Act played out in *a tense 24 hours* *that* White House and congressional officials said proved [to be] a political education for Trump and his top advisers on the promise and peril of governing ...'

'The children were playing in *a bouncy castle* *that* inspectors said proved [to be] an object lesson for the owners on the benefits and dangers of operating such things.'

The elements are, in order:
Subject; Main Verb; Adverbial Phrase containing *Noun Phrase; Relative Pronoun referring to Noun Phrase; *Subject of Relative clause; Verb of Relative Clause; Verb of Indirect Statement within Relative Clause [Infinitive of Indirect Statement] Object Phrase of Indirect Statement.

The original question was about the function of 'that'. The above analysis shows that it has several functions at the same time.
It is (1) the relative pronoun referring to the noun phrase 'a tense 24 hours' (2) the object of the verb 'said' and (3) the head substantive within the indirect statement 'that ... officials said proved [to be] a political education'.

The main clause and the basis of the sentence is:
_'The demise of the American Health Care Act played out in a tense 24 hours'._

If we let that stand as one sentence, we can make a second sentence of the rest:
_'White House and congressional officials said that that tense 24 hours proved a political education for Trump and his top advisers on the promise and peril of governing, even with unified Republican control'._


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## karlalou

Ah.. Thanks, PaulQ!
They don't usually use any [(I mean) relative] pronoun just to say "the White House said", do they? [edit] No, actually it's "_that White House and congressional officials said_".
Is that 'that' simply typo of 'the'? Well, they are even commas missing..
This is the original article.


< Off-topic comment removed.  Cagey, moderator >


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## Loob

I agree with wandle here: I'm bemused by this thread....

"That", in the context of post1, is straightforwardly a relative pronoun.


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## siares

I read it as Florentia and wandle and have trouble reading it the other way.
But having tried, is 'noun played out in time period' definitely a verb, not an adjective? Something like *noun* *made in China*?

In that case it wouldn't be the case that the pronoun is jumping across a verb.


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## Loob

Again, I'm bemused...

The antecedent of the relative pronoun "that" can only be - as wandle says - "a tense 24 hours".




------------

I'm clearly missing something important: I can't see why this thread has reached this number of posts....


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## siares

Loob said:


> Again, I'm bemused...


Are you reacting to my post?
I read it the same as you, but I have a grammar question, is the first sentence unacceptable? If not, is there a grammar difference between the 2?
_The toy made in China that was found to be toxic.
The demise played out in 24 hours that taught Trump a lesson._


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## Loob

Now I'm getting really confused....


siares said:


> _The toy made in China that was found to be toxic.
> The demise played out in 24 hours that taught Trump a lesson._


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## karlalou

siares said:


> The toy made in China that was found to be toxic.
> The demise played out in 24 hours that taught Trump a lesson.


Siares, good example! I wonder how you get it. 
These are both not a sentence. They are both only a noun phrase. The OP's Trump one, too, because of how you presented it.


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## siares

Yes, karlalou, I presented it like that on purpose to analyse it.
For that reading, there would have to be a previous sentence which would have supplied the verb. What was this? A demise that taught..

Loob, I am getting that 'play out' cannot be used in this way, but I had no way of knowing, I think.
_The book finished in 2 weeks became a bestseller._ - pretty sure this is OK 
'Play out' just seem very similar to 'finish'.


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## andrewg927

I think we should start a new post. At this point, everyone will just get confused by the million things in here.


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## SevenDays

Loob said:


> Again, I'm bemused...
> 
> The antecedent of the relative pronoun "that" can only be - as wandle says - "a tense 24 hours".
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ------------
> 
> I'm clearly missing something important: I can't see why this thread has reached this number of posts....



Context; that's what you are missing. If we say that the antecedent of the relative pronoun "that" is "a tense 24 hours" then what the sentence ends up saying is that what proved to be a "political education" was _a tense 24 hours_. However, that doesn't quite capture what's going on in Washington; there's a _bigger _story. Trump campaigned for two years to get rid of the Health Care Act (which is really Obamacare, a plan to ensure that everyone gets health insurance), and Republicans in the House of Representatives passed legislation _several times_ to get rid of Obamacare, knowing full well that it was an empty political gesture as long as Obama was president. But now the Republicans control everything: the House, the Senate and the White House. The political education that Trump got is that having_ total control_ doesn't mean you get to pass any legislation you want, and that sometimes the fiercest opposition comes from within your own party. That's what "demise," as antecedent of "that," points to.

And yet there's a connection between "demise" and _a tense 24 hours_; "a tense 24 hours" refers to last minute negotiations and concessions offered and made trying to get a deal done _among Republicans_, which ultimately failed. It is for that reason that non-restrictive relative "which" would be better than restrictive relative "that," as I said earlier, in post #20 (but that doesn't make the original sentence _incorrect_). 

That the noun immediately _before _the relative pronoun isn't _always _the antecedent is clearly shown in that _clever _example by Siares ("the toy made in China that was found to be toxic"). You wouldn't say that "China" is the antecedent of "that."


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## Loob

SevenDays said:


> That the noun immediately _before _the relative pronoun isn't _always _the antecedent is clearly shown in that _clever _example by Siares ("the toy made in China that was found to be toxic"). You wouldn't say that "China" is the antecedent of "that."


Whoever said it was, SevenDays?


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## SevenDays

Loob said:


> Whoever said it was, SevenDays?



No one; it was just a way to make a broader point, that the (true) antecedent of a relative pronoun _can_ appear earlier in the sentence. Now, I suppose there may be a compromise here; that this is a relative pronoun with_ two_ antecedents; one _syntactic_ ("a tense 24 hours," by virtue of placement in the sentence), the other _logical_ ("the demise," by virtue of its semantic weight), both of which are _noun phrases_. And both noun phrases _can _be used to replace "that" _inside_ the relative clause. (I'm not partial to this compromise, but I grant that it is conceivable.)


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## Florentia52

I see no problem with the original sentence. It clearly states -- both logically and grammatically -- that the "tense 24 hours" proved a political education for Trump. The paragraphs that follow the sentence go into detail about that 24-hour period. It was not just "the demise of the American Health Care Act," but all of the political maneuvering and negotiations around it, that became a poitical education.

Here's a link to the article: "In Dropping Health Vote, Trump Swallowed Need for a Showdown" by Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Maggie Haberman, _The New York Times,_ March 24, 2017.


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## karlalou

Please show us how you rewrite it with "A 24 hours" as the subject of the sentence or a clause.

+ And it has 'in' before it.


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## Florentia52

I think wangle did an excellent and detailed job of dissecting and parsing the sentence in #23. _That tense 24 hours proved (to be) an education..._


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## karlalou

Florentia52 said:


> I think wangle did an excellent and detailed job of dissecting and parsing the sentence in #23. _That tense 24 hours proved (to be) an education..._


Where is the 'in'?


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## karlalou

kazuhiko fudaba said:


> The demise of the American Health Care Act played out in a tense 24 hours *that* White House and congretional officials said


Don't you feel it's odd when so much words modifying "The demise" and the relative pronoun is just referring to the last bit of 'a tense 24 hours', a bit of the long modifier? It just doesn't make sense to me at all.


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## Florentia52

Your edit to #37 was cross-posted with my reply in #38.

The "in" is part of the clause that becomes the first sentence when one splits the sentence in two. 

Here's a simplified version of the entire structure:

_The brush fire developed over the course of a day that tested the endurance of fire crews._

I'm not sure I understand your question in #40, but I don't find anything odd about the original sentence.


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## karlalou

Thanks. I am not convinced at all.


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## wandle

Florentia52 said:


> The brush fire developed over the course of a day that tested the endurance of fire crews.


That is a good parallel.





siares said:


> The toy made in China that was found to be toxic.
> The demise played out in 24 hours that taught Trump a lesson


That is a false parallel.

As pointed out explicitly in post 23 (and by implication in post 13), 'played out' is the main verb of the sentence.
It is not a participle phrase. It is a full verb and an intransitive verb.

To make clear the parallel put forward in post 13 and 23 here is the basic structure of the two sentences:

_The demise ... played out in a tense 24 hours that officials said proved [to be] an education.
The children were playing in a bouncy castle that inspectors said proved [to be] an object lesson._

The verb 'played out' is intransitive and simply means 'developed' or 'went through all its stages':

_The demise ... went through all its stages in a tense 24 hours that etc.
_
Unfortunately, this sense of 'play out' does not appear in the WordRef Dictionaries. However, it is in the Oxford English Dictionary:


> * Play out
> 
> 2. intr.* To develop; to conclude; ....
> 
> 1835   R. Browning Paracelsus iv. 156 _  As though it matter'd how the farce plays out, So it be quickly play'd._


Here is another example:

The Shadow Saga Omnibus Orson Scott Card - 2013
_'The question now is, how will this play out?' 'How do you think it will play out?'_


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## karlalou

Compare:
*The demise* (of the American Health Care Act played out in a tense 24 hours) *that White House and congressional officials said* proved a political education for Trump and...

*The demise* (of the American Health Care Act played out in _the tense 24 hours that_ White House and congressional officials said) proved a political education for Trump and...

Now in the latter, do you even need to say the part of the relative pronoun? It's so insignificant like this.


[edit to add for your convenience]


SevenDays said:


> That the noun immediately _before _the relative pronoun isn't _always _the antecedent is clearly shown in that _clever _example by Siares ("the toy made in China that was found to be toxic"). You wouldn't say that "China" is the antecedent of "that."


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## SevenDays

The gap below

_White House and congressional officials said  _________ proved a political education for Trump and his top advisers on the promise and peril of governing, even with unified Republican control._

can be filled by either
(a) a tense 24 hours
(b) the demise of the American Health Care Act

However, (a) is a bit of a trick; "a tense 24 hours" is governed by the preposition "in" (_a tense 24 hours _is the complement of the preposition "in"), and to use (a) you have to eliminate "in."  By contrast, nothing is eliminated in (b); you simply slide it right into the gap above. That's why I say that the "true" antecedent is (b). Also, (a) is semantically light; it doesn't convey the same information as (b). In other words, (b) is more specific, more definite than (a), and specificity/definiteness is a feature of the restrictive relative pronoun that. The original sentence is correct; there's just disagreement as to the antecedent of "that."

The example in post #23 (_The children were playing in a bouncy castle that inspectors said proved to be an object lesson for the owners on the benefits and dangers of operating such things_) isn't analogous to our Trump sentence. Try filling the gap below

(c)_ Inspectors said _____ proved to be an object lesson for the owners on the benefits and dangers operating such things_

with "a bouncy castle" (_Inspectors said a bouncy castle proved to be an object lesson_) and you'll see that "a bouncy castle" is semantically light as well, same as (a) above. By contrast "_Inspectors said that children playing in a bouncy castle proved to be an object lesson"_ gives a fuller picture (and notice I had to eliminate "were"). In #23, the antecedent is actually _everything_ that preceded "that," and it makes sense: a linking verb is empty of meaning (it gives grammatical notions of mood, time, person, etc.); for that reason, "the children were playing in a bouncy castle" is labeled in some analysis as a _*noun phrase*_, and it is that noun phrase which is the antecedent of "that." And because in (c) above "tense" is marked by "said," the linking verb "were" is eliminated when the *noun phrase*/_antecedent_ is placed _inside _the relative clause. The example in #23 has a linking verb; the original Trump example doesn't, and that makes a difference.


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## Thomas Tompion

I too am bemused by this thread.  The natives, Florentia, Hildy, and Loob, have explained what is a very simple point, that the period of time - _a tense 24 hours_ - is what the text says 'proved a political education for Trump etc' according to 'White House and congressional (spelled correctly in the original) officials'.

Of course it was what happened in those 24 hours which explains what this means, but the grammatical antecedent is _a tense 24 hours_.

How can such a simple question be made to seem so complicated?


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## wandle

SevenDays said:


> The example in #23 has a linking verb; the original Trump example doesn't, and that makes a difference.


The two sentences each have a main verb which is intransitive: 'The demise played out'; 'The children were playing'.

That is a valid parallel (first offered in post 13).

Various people seem to have missed it, not realising that 'played out' is intransitive and that it is the main verb.


Thomas Tompion said:


> Of course it was what happened in those 24 hours which explains what this means, but the grammatical antecedent is _a tense 24 hours._


Yes. The semantic message and the grammatical structure are two different things.


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## Andygc

Another native English speaker who is also astounded by the suggestion that "a tense 24 hours" is not the antecedent of "that".


Thomas Tompion said:


> How can such a simple question be made to seem so complicated?


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## siares

Loob said:


> Now I'm getting really confused....





wandle said:


> not realising that 'played out' is intransitive





wandle said:


> 'played out' is the main verb of the sentence.
> It is not a participle phrase. It is a full verb and an intransitive verb.


We know it is a main verb because of the preceding sentence which doesn't give a context for the following to be verbless.
But why may it not be parsed as a participle on first read - are all the 'play out' found as participles in news and in google books wrong?

Is it because this is a different sense of 'play out' - a transitive one, which means 'finish' rather than 'go through all stages'?

_He told a court today he was only the front seat passenger and not the driver in the drama played out at 1.45am on New Year's Day._

_It is the depths of a conjugal love's agony; in the cloud kingdom it is the equivalent of the drama played out at the bottom of the river— a misunderstanding between man and woman._

_If the drama played out at Bordeaux was, as it seems to have been, a public jockeying for moral superiority, then Philippe was Charles's prime asset._

1http://www.nottinghampost.com/8203-man-who-claimed-police-arrested-wrong-person-found-guilty-of-dangerous-driving/story-30216693-detail/story.html#dWxD1VJXTRkRfI60.99
2 Opera, Or, The Undoing of Women
3https://books.google.sk/books?id=UhXEqEIfakcC&pg=PA39&dq=iF+THE+DRAMA+PLAYED+OUT+AT+BORDEAUX+WAS&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjtmYzH2J7TAhXjNJoKHXPjCXUQ6AEIGjAA#v=onepage&q=iF%20THE%20DRAMA%20PLAYED%20OUT%20AT%20BORDEAUX%20WAS&f=false


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## Loob

"Played out" _could_ be interpreted as a past participle on first reading, siares.  But as soon as the reader gets to the clause beginning with the relative pronoun "that", it becomes obvious that "played out" has to be simple past.

Is that what the confusion has been about?


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## siares

Thanks, Loob.
I don't know. 


karlalou said:


> Please show us how you rewrite it with "A 24 hours" as the subject of the sentence or a clause.
> + And it has 'in' before it.


My try: (The 'in' doesn't need to be in front.)
_The officials said that the tense 24 hours the demise has played out in have proved to be a political education._


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## wandle

siares said:


> But why may it not be parsed as a participle that on first read


If 'played out' were a participle, the sentence would have no main verb. 

However, there has to be a main verb and 'played out' is the only possible choice for that.


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## siares

I get that, however we only had one contextless sentence. The previous sentence could have been: What was it that happened? The answer would not have required a main verb.
I thought there was some property of 'play out' such as its being intransitive which led you to say it cannot function as a participle.


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## wandle

siares said:


> The previous sentence could have been: What was it that happened? The answer would not have required a main verb.


It is part of an article, not a dialogue.

In any case, a sentence of the length and complexity we are discussing could never be left as an extended phrase without a main verb (at least not by any self-respecting writer). I have not seen the context and did not need it in order to reply to the thread.


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## RedwoodGrove

I will just opine for a moment that, as ever writer or grammarian knows, the point of a good sentence is to achieve a nexus between grammar and logical sense. This sentence makes sense if you read it quickly but like so much journalistic phrasing it tries to express too much in too few words. (A product of limited space and limited time.) When you start to break it down, it probably becomes apparent that the logic is somewhat lacking (at least in my view). 

In this I may disagree with Wandle, who posted just now, because I don't see the complexity as being a real virtue.


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## Loob

Siares, I think the issue here may be more to do with the way that native speakers process what they read in "chunks" rather than word by word.  We can hold onto an ambiguous construction like "The demise ... played out" {is "played out" a participle? is "played out" a past tense?} until the ambiguity is resolved further on in the sentence: and the processing happens so swiftly and automatically we're not even aware we're doing it.  A second-language learner is more likely to opt immediately for one reading or the other.

(I seem to recall a similar discussion about this way, way back.  Yes, here's the panj post I remember: click)


----------



## wandle

RedwoodGrove said:


> When you start to break it down, it probably becomes apparent that the logic is somewhat lacking (at least in my view).
> In this I may disagree with Wandle, who posted just now, because I don't see the complexity as being a real virtue.


It is true that the sentence is tightly packed with clauses using different constructions and this creates a challenge for analysis.
Yes, it exemplifies the journalist's tendency to cram as much as possible into a small space and this case perhaps overdoes it.
However, I think post 23 shows that it all works and I have not noticed any defect in logic.

It is not that the complexity is a virtue. I said the complexity is such that no sensible writer would leave that sentence without a main verb.


----------



## siares

Thank you, wandle. Loob. Very nice thread, Loob!


SevenDays said:


> The relative pronoun isn't just a syntactic marker, it's also semantic in nature; _the demise of the Health Care Act_ *is *what proved to be a "political education" (it shows that governing is not easy, even when you have_ total power_), not "a tense 24 hours" (after all, politicians have "tense 24 hours" all the time; nothing unusual or educational about that).


I was thinking, couldn't 'the demise played out' be an adjectival thing qualifying the 24 hours?
the 24 hours were
- tense
- had a demise played out in them
so they were specific on 2 counts, and that's why they taught a lesson (not just because of 1 reson: being tense)
Something like:
_The spring day in which I watched my friend die aged me 10 years._
The adjective 'spring' is not that feature of the day which brought on the aging, it is 'in which I watched my friend die'.


----------



## wandle

siares said:


> I was thinking, couldn't 'the demise played out' be an adjectival thing qualifying the 24 hours?


Not in the topic sentence.

Please see post 23. 'The demise of the American Health Care Act' is the subject of the main clause and 'played out' is the main verb.

A different structure would be needed.


----------



## siares

See what it was in response to.
Seven Days was saying that semantically it makes little sense that mere 'tense hours' would have taught anyone a lesson.

I proposed that the hours were, in a way, qualified by the information about what transpired in them (the demise).
Same as here it is not the adjective 'spring' attached to the day which plays major role, but that what is said before about what transpired in the day.
_I watched him die from a gut wound on a spring day that aged me 10 years._

I called 'spring' an adjective and 'watched him die on' an 'adjectival thing', because both describe the nature of the day, but one on a level of structure of the sentenc and another on the level of narrative. I see these two as nearly equivalent in meaning (I'm not saying grammar)
_I watched him die on a spring day that aged me 10 years.
The spring day I watched him die in aged me 10 years._

If there is serious objection to my calling subject+verb an 'adjectival thing', I am willing to amend it to 'thingy'.


----------



## wandle

II am sorry, but if my posts so far have not been enough of an explanation, then I really can offer nothing better.
Post 60 seems to me to be straying from the topic (the function of 'that').


----------



## karlalou

andrewg927 said:


> "that" here refers to the entire clause "the demise of the American Health Care Act played out in a tense 24 hours"


A native was correct right from the beginning at #2.


RedwoodGrove said:


> This sentence makes sense if you read it quickly but like so much journalistic phrasing it tries to express too much in too few words. (A product of limited space and limited time.)


Yes, I'm just recently reminded by a native at other site, "New york times articles are like the highest level of english reading. Are you sure you want to challenge yourself so high." Now I understand it's considered like so because it's highly grammatical. Indeed they are so good at grammar. The limitation in time and space in the news casting is nothing new.


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## Thomas Tompion

siares said:


> See what it was in response to.
> Seven Days was saying that semantically it makes little sense that mere 'tense hours' would have taught anyone a lesson.
> 
> I proposed that the hours were, in a way, qualified by the information about what transpired in them (the demise).
> Same as here it is not the adjective 'spring' attached to the day which plays major role, but that what is said before about what transpired in the day.
> _I watched him die from a gut wound on a spring day that aged me 10 years._
> [...]


It's not really a matter of qualification.  It's quite normal in English to talk of the time spent doing something, or in a place, as bringing benefits of information or techniques.  

Thus, maybe, the natives here read the tense hours as referring naturally to what happened in those hours, rather than regarding the time simply as the passage of minutes.  

Indeed an English native speaker would need a lot of persuading to look at the time in another light.  That may explain partly the length of this thread examining what seems to us an extremely simple point.


----------



## Thomas Tompion

karlalou said:


> A native was correct right from the beginning at #2.


Thanks for pointing it out.  I hadn't realised a native had missed the point.


----------



## Andygc

karlalou said:


> A native was correct right from the beginning at #2.


No, incorrect, and then, if I recall correctly, corrected by every other native from post #3 onwards.


----------



## karlalou

It's too timid when it's considered like this:


karlalou said:


> *The demise* (of the American Health Care Act played out in _the tense 24 hours that_ White House and congressional officials said) proved a political education for Trump and...


Are you aware what you are doing by taking "a tense 24 hours" as the antecedent of the relative pronoun 'that'? You are considering "that White House and .... said" as part of long modifier to "The demise". Otherwise how do you explain the structure of the sentence?
Don't you need "the tense 24 hours" instead of "a tense 24 hours" if the relative clause is modifying it?

< --- >


----------



## Thomas Tompion

karlalou said:


> Don't you need "the tense 24 hours" instead of "a tense 24 hours" if the relative clause is modifying it?


No, absolutely not.

You seem determined to persist in your error.

I hope Kazuhiko feels he has received an answer to his question.


----------



## Florentia52

"...that White House...said..." relates to "a tense 24 hours," not to "demise."

_The demise took place during a day that turned out to be a political education for Trump._ (Or, if you prefer, "a day _which_ turned out to be...")


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## siares

Thank you, wandle, Thomas Tompion.


karlalou said:


> It's too timid when it's considered like this:
> Are you aware what you are doing by taking "a tense 24 hours" as the antecedent of the relative pronoun 'that'? You are considering "that White House and .... said" as part of long modifier to "The demise". Otherwise how do you explain the structure of the sentence?


I think the demise is not really qualified.


karlalou said:


> Compare:
> *The demise* (of the American Health Care Act played out in a tense 24 hours) *that White House and congressional officials said* proved a political education for Trump and...
> *The demise* (of the American Health Care Act played out in _the tense 24 hours that_ White House and congressional officials said) proved a political education for Trump and...


I think the brackets are this way: 
The demise of the American Health Care Act played out in a tense 24 hours (that White House and congressional officials said proved a political education for Trump).

She bought that handbag in a super-expensive shop (that is said to have been built according to top-secret feng-shui principles).

What do you think of my re-write in 51, no good?


----------



## SevenDays

I was just thinking that the problem here is the notion of _anteceden_t. "Antecedent" is really a term borrowed from _t_r_aditional grammar_; linguistically, such term has its limitations. More to the point is the concept of _endephora_, or the element(s) which give "that" full meaning. And since we look _back_ in the sentence to find the meaning of "that," what we mean is _anaphora_; linguistically, "that" is in an _anaphoric relationship _with "a tense 24 hours" and "the demise." Put this way, you can dismiss the notion of "antecedent," which is really irrelevant in our sentence structure.

As written, the sentence packs a lot of information in a short space, and I suspect that the writer put "that" in there as a _connector _(getting the sentence from point A to point B) rather than thinking of it as a "relative pronoun" with an "antecedent." This is typical in deadline writing, when the point is really to get information out _quickly_. As RedwoodGrove pointed out, when you start breaking the sentence down to its component parts (to see how they relate to sentence meaning), logic is somewhat lacking.


----------



## wandle

So apparently the theory of 'full meaning' leads to the conclusion that there is little structured connection between the elements of the sentence and that logic is somewhat lacking.

The traditional analysis in post 23, on the other hand, presents the sentence as a closely organised structure with a clear logical meaning.

This does not strike me as a very good advertisement for the 'full meaning' theory. It seems to have less meaning to offer (but more jargon).


----------



## SevenDays

wandle said:


> The traditional analysis in post 23, on the other hand, presents the sentence as a closely organised structure with a clear logical meaning ...
> for those who agree with the traditional analysis in post 23



I have no problem with that being the conclusion of this rather long and meandering thread.


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## siares

Sorry to disagree but I think if the sentence were beautifully written, it would be easier to analyse.
I don't see the sentence as a good advertisement on any clear logic or structure, if the loosely thrown in part that I underlined remains there.
_The demise played out in hours that proved to be an education on promise and peril of governing, even with unified Republican control._
The hours were educational even with unified Republican control? There is promise&peril even with unified Republican control? There is promise of governing despite..?

With this last part taken into account, I want even more 'the demise' to be the thing which is proving to be something despite the unified control; the grammar of 'that' doesn't allow me that but all I'll do is reluctantly tolerate the sentence rather than marvel at its architecture.


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## Thomas Tompion

The sentence is clear and unambiguous.  You might claim it mixed two metaphors, but _to play out _has almost lost any figurative sense these days, I suspect.


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## Loob

I agree with TT and others: the sentence is clear and unambiguous - and easy to analyse.

I'm not sure what problem we're discussing now.


----------



## siares

Thomas Tompion said:


> The sentence is clear and unambiguous.  You might claim it mixed two metaphors, but _to play out _has almost lost any figurative sense these days, I suspect.


I don't know a figurative sense of 'play out', is it from sports? I didn't notice even one metaphor.


Loob said:


> I agree with TT and others: the sentence is clear and unambiguous - and easy to analyse.


I don't understand how the ending grammatically qualifies any of the rest.
When I rephrase the sentence -bring the ending to the front:
_Even with unified Republican control, the 24 hours when the demise played out were an education on promise and peril in governing for us all / for Trump, officials said._

It seems to imply now that without such unified control, the hours/demise would have been even more educational.


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## Florentia52

siares said:


> I don't understand how the ending grammatically qualifies any of the rest.
> When I rephrase the sentence -bring the ending to the front:
> _Even with unified Republican control, the 24 hours when the demise played out were an education on promise and peril in governing for us all / for Trump, officials said._
> 
> It seems to imply now that without such unified control, the hours/demise would have been even more educational.



"Even with unified Republican control" modifies "the promise and peril of governing." It's not surprising that the sentence doesn't make any sense if you rephrase it by moving that phrase to the front.


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## siares

Oh of course, Florentia! So kind of you to explain it! I think it was the comma before even that completetely blinded me to this reading!
In that case I agree with everybody that the sentence is crystal clear.


----------



## karlalou

I happened to notice the bar is lifted so I came back to say things I didn't have chance to say.
Mainly I wanted to say that I came to think I can't ignore the importance of the of-phrase in this case that the best answer to the OP is Seven's "The demise of the American Health Care Act" as the OP originally had in mind though we learn 'antecedent' at school excluding the modifier. Of course we need and have the freedom to modify even the antecedent by other than the relative clause. I don't find anything says 'antecedent' means 'right before', Seven. Doesn't it just say 'goes before'?



> The demise of the American Health Care Act played out in a tense 24 hours *that* White House and congressional officials said proved a political education for Trump and his top advisers on the promise and peril of governing, even with unified Republican control.


I came to suspect that for many this 'that' is sounding too much like a conjunction to introduce a subordinate clause.

However, we find 'proved' right after 'said'. You can't have a clause with two verbs sitting together side by side like this; 'said proved'.

Siares, we are seeing a break here, between the two verbs. You can't consider the rest of the sentence after 'that' as one clause.


PaulQ said:


> {[The demise [[that was] played out in 24 hours]]} *that* the White House said proved *to be *a lesson for Trump.





PaulQ said:


> You will see that there is no main clause.


I agree with PaulQ. I added a slash between 'said' and 'proved' to make it clearer in my post #7.


karlalou said:


> *that *White House and congressional officials said [:subject]/[predicate:] proved a political education for Trump and (......)


There's no relationship of the main and subordinate clause, but there's the relative clause inserted to say WHO SAID IT and this should be very important in news casting, yet "The demise of the American Health Care Act" was needed to be said before anything.


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## Thomas Tompion

You seem determined to persist in your error, Karlalou.

There's no problem in reading 'that' as introducing the subordinate clause.

There's no problem with 'said proved'.  Here are two similar examples from the AE corpus:

_Hawaii news outlets debunked those numbers, __which they said came from mainland Republican operatives_ - News, USA Today.
_Maryland lawmakers were responding to driver complaints about the new tests, which they said took too long and damaged some cars_ - Pollution rules will hit close to home, John Merline.

You have said that "one can't have" something which is entirely normal and idiomatic.

The same goes for your other objections.

Natives should have no difficulty in reading this sentence correctly.


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## siares

PaulQ said:


> {[The demise [[that was] played out in 24 hours]]} that *proved,* the White House said, *to be *a lesson for Trump.





karlalou said:


> I agree with PaulQ.


PaulQ has re-written the sentence. What do you agree with, that there is no main clause in the original or the re-write?
The problem still is that 'played out' must be a verb, rather than a participle. (Demise played out or Demise was played out)
I re-wrote the sentence keeping the 'that'; adding commas, but I can't see a way to make the 'that' refer to the noun before active verb 'played out'. (Or before the verb 'was played')

(PaulQ has moved the verb 'proved' before _X said_, I don't know whether it is stylistic usual thing to do or grammatically needed. Below I left the verb AFTER the '_X said'_.)

_The demise played out in a tense 24 hours that, White House and congressional officials said, *proved* an education to Trump.
The match was played on a morning that, historians claimed, *was* the finest in the history of mornings.



Thomas Tompion said:



			Natives should have no difficulty in reading this sentence correctly.
		
Click to expand...

_About 4 people have said that the sentence is very easy. Don't they know Murphy's laws? The long thread proves them!

(I went back to struggling with the sentence, because I don't understand how 'even with full control' can modify both opposing concepts of promise and peril. (Can someone explain?)
_24 hrs proved an education *on promise* and peril *of governing, even with full control.)*_


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## Andygc

"The promise and peril of government, even with unified Republican control". The promise and peril are modified by control of Congress. Republican control of both Senate and House (unified control) could be expected to enhance the promise and reduce the peril. Democrat control could be expected to reduce the promise and increase the peril. The 24 hours were an education in the promise and peril even though Trump might have expected benefit from the unified Republican control of Congress.


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## karlalou

Of course we are supposed to analyzing the OP's original sentence, aren't we, Siares?

_<-----Off-topic comment removed by moderator (Florentia52)----->_


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## Thomas Tompion

*The demise of the American Health Care Act played out in a tense 24 hours that White House and congressional officials said proved a political education for Trump and his top advisers on the promise and peril of governing, even with unified Republican control.
*
The American Health Care Act collapsed in 24 hours.  White House officials said that these 24 hours had been a political education for Trump and his advisers on the difficulty of governing, even when you have control of both houses of Congress.

I dare say that this is difficult to disentangle if you aren't very familiar either with English or with the American system of government, but not otherwise, in my view.

I'm afraid that I have no doubt at all that it was the 24 hours which proved the education.


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## siares

Andygc said:


> The 24 hours were an education in the promise and peril even though Trump might have expected benefit from the unified Republican control of Congress.


I think I understood, 'promise and peril' should be read together as one chunk of meaning, something like 'mixed bag'. I missed that, thank you, Andygc.


karlalou said:


> Of course we are supposed to analyzing the OP's original sentence, aren't we, Siares?


Yes and no... Myself I wasn't familiar with 'play out' so any versions with a familiar verb would read easier. After that comparing the structure of OP and a re-write would show faster which one has an active verb and where. Wandle's example was good but sometimes the more the better until one clicks. Are you considering in the OP 'played out' is a participle like 'made in China', and the 'proved' is the active verb?


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## Thomas Tompion

siares said:


> Are you considering in the OP 'played out' is a participle like 'made in China'


Certainly not.  It's a simple past tense and is a metaphor from the theatre, I'd say.  It suggests a drawn-out process in which the Act was discussed and finally rejected.


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## siares

Thank you, Thomas Tompion, interesting. 
I know that others are not considering this, I was asking karlalou if, after you posted parallel examples in 80, there is still an issue remaining with 'played out' being the main verb; or if the question is now answered.


----------



## Thomas Tompion

siares said:


> Thank you, Thomas Tompion, interesting.
> I know that others are not considering this, I was asking karlalou if, after you posted parallel examples in 80, there is still an issue remaining with 'played out' being the main verb; or if the question is now answered.


I've just translated it for you as 'collapsed', another simple past, which removes the theatrical image (which is commonly used in other contexts, as here).  I can see that if you don't read it as the main verb of the sentence, which is what it is, you will have great difficulty understanding the rest.

Subject (the demise of the Act) + intransitive verb (played out) + expression of time (in a tense 24 hours) + long relative clause (starting that, which refers to the 24 hours).


----------



## karlalou

siares said:


> Are you considering in the OP 'played out' is a participle like 'made in China', and the 'proved' is the active verb?


When we read something, we read it as it makes sense at best. You have to choose the one makes sense the best, don't you?

The subject is non-human. It's obviously naturally in passive voice. In other words, 'be' is missing in front of 'played out', as PaulQ also has shown, that it can not be naturally the main verb of the whole sentence.


----------



## siares

karlalou said:


> The subject is non-human. It's obviously naturally in passive voice.


I see the logic. There are some verbs which are not 'done' by non-living things.
The match played on Saturday.(I think)
The match was played on Saturday.

But then there are other verbs which can do both:
The rock eroded.
The rock was eroded by wind.

Or(I think) those that can do just the other one:
The house collapsed.
The house was collapsed by weight of snow on the roof.(I think)

Thomas Tompion gave 'collapsed' as a similar term to 'play out', so then 'play out' can be a main verb.


----------



## karlalou

The word is 'play'.

The demise played 'what?' in a tense 24 hours.


----------



## Thomas Tompion

siares said:


> Thomas Tompion gave 'collapsed' as a similar term to 'play out', so then 'play out' can be a main verb.


It not only can be; it incontrovertibly is the main verb - _The demise of the Act played out_ (intransitive verb):  this is not a question of opinion.  I'm afraid I regard it as entirely obvious. 

If people don't see this, we should not be surprised that they find the sentence as a whole hard to comprehend.


----------



## siares

karlalou said:


> The word is 'play'.
> The demise played 'what?' in a tense 24 hours.


I don't understand this. Is the 'out' in place of what? Could you give a whole dialogue?
In _man convicted of murder_ I can ask: convicted of what?
But in _a treasure dug out on the island_ I cannot ask: dug what? (unless I misheard)



Thomas Tompion said:


> it incontrovertibly is the main verb


We are discussing general properties of 'play out', not those in the specific (OP) sentence.
Wandle posted an example of usage from OED, but it's old, and the other one is contextless.


----------



## Thomas Tompion

Try this - source

To play out (phrasal verb)

1 [intransitive/transitive] to develop or end in a particular way
They disagreed violently, and no one knew how the situation would play out.

_Everything that happened after that night __played out like a script _- The Beautician, Dobozy, Tamas

This is just one of 2,030 examples in the AE Corpus (the COCA).  If you look there, you will find more than enough to get a feel for the idiom.


----------



## karlalou

I feel a some kind of chill if the sentence is saying "The demise" played out something, or even the 'played' as an intransitive. It's too much like as if "The demise" got a will to do.

Instead, the part 'played out in a tense 24 hours' is simply a modifier, and not that much important like telling us "The demise" got a will to play out (something).

And why do you have to make it so complicated when you can see it much simpler and more logical? PaulQ showed us how to parse the sentence with the reduced word counts.

I've solved it already and happy with what I see while taking the "a tense 24 hours" as the antecedent is just making me feel crazy.


----------



## wandle

Grammar requires 'a tense 24 hours' to be the antecedent of 'that', because that is the only way to read the text as a complete, connected, correctly expressed sentence.

'Played out' is intransitive and 'the demise' is its subject. It means 'the demise went forward to its conclusion'. We speak of a drama 'playing out': that is, carrying on to its end. We can say the same for any sequence of events.

Compare the parallel in post 13, and analysis in post 23, in order to see the structure


----------



## siares

karlalou said:


> And why do you have to make it so complicated when you can see it much simpler and more logical? PaulQ showed us how to parse the sentence with the reduced word counts.


Because the context does not support that there be a verbless sentence there in that place in the article. PaulQ's version is verbless.

Passive form is sort of like an 'adjective'. Let's for the moment treat 'played out' as passive:
_The toy made in China turned out to be toxic./ The demise played out in 24 hours that X said proved an education._
The adjective-like bit can be removed from a sentence without the structure collapsing:
_The toy turned out to be toxic._ (Main verb - turned out..)
_The demise that X said proved an education... _(There is no main verb. 'Proved' is an object of 'said': 'They said the hours proved (to be) an education'.)


----------



## karlalou

I've been saying that the "proved" is the main verb. PaulQ made it clearer by adding 'to be'.


----------



## siares

Uhm, I see what you mean, there are 2 verbs, said+proved.
Unfortunately I cannot explain how I can tell that 'proved' is not a main verb.

I'll try an example:

The dress (that siares likes) is sold out.
The dress (that siares says she likes) is sold out.

The bracketed part is a clause that can be removed. The 'likes' in the second sentence is not a main verb either of the whole sentence, or the clause. If I remove 'is sold out', the sentence will be incomplete. Do you agree with this example?

Hopefully someone could provide proper syntactical terms.


----------



## karlalou

siares said:


> The dress (that siares likes) is sold out.


The demise (that White House said) proved (to be) a political education for Trump ...

Both have the same structure.


----------



## karlalou

*The demise of the American Health Care Act *(played out in a tense 24 hours) (*that* White House and congressional officials said)* [:end of the long subject] /proved [:verb] *(to be) a political education for Trump and his top advisers on the promise and peril of governing, even with unified Republican control.

(played out in a tense 24 hours) is an *adjectival phrase* with the past participle 'played'.

(*that* White House and congressional officials said) is a *relative clause* modifying the antecedent, "The demise of the American Health Care Act".


----------



## siares

karlalou said:


> _
> 
> 
> siares said:
> 
> 
> 
> The dress (that siares likes) is sold out.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> The demise (that White House said) proved (to be) a political education for Trump ...
> _
> Both have the same structure.


_Siares likes the dress._ makes sense
_White House (the officials) said the demise._ Doesn't make sense because of the meaning of 'demise'. From a dictionary, 'demise' is close to 'death'.
_White House said the death._ doesn't make sense.

2 different examles with the same verb 'say':
_1) Things (that the officials said) *proved* to be untrue. _Officials said things. Main verb = prove.
_2) I *believed *the politician when he was saying those things (that the officials said proved to be untrue) _Officials made a statement about some things: they said that the things were untrue. Main verb = believe

Sorry for clunky example.

The meaning of demise doesn't allow reading 1) officials said the demise (the death).
Only the reading 2): officials made a statement about the demise (the death). The statement was: the demise proved to be an education.


----------



## karlalou

I think it's like saying *the story* (the demise of health care act happened dramatically)* they said* proved to be an education for Trump.


----------



## Andygc

siares. Please listen to Thomas Tompion. "The demise" is the subject of "played out".


karlalou said:


> You have to choose the one makes sense the best, don't you?


Indeed, you do.


karlalou said:


> (played out in a tense 24 hours) is an *adjectival phrase* with the past participle 'played'.
> 
> (*that* White House and congressional officials said) is a *relative clause* modifying the antecedent, "The demise of the American Health Care Act".


and that makes no sense whatsoever.


----------



## siares

karlalou said:


> I think it's like saying *the story* (the demise of health care act happened dramatically)* they said* proved to be an education for Trump.


I think we cannot 'say a story', only 'tell a story'.
(Even if we could, I couldn't use 'story', as a replacement for death that happened dramatically in the way you suggest.)

The only way I can see the 'say' working, is in a re-write with commas and without 'that':
_The demise, officials said, proved to be an education._



Andygc said:


> siares. Please listen to Thomas Tompion.


I am listening! I am trying to explore why karlalou instinctively parses 'played out' as a passive, and going over the reasons. One of them was to do with nature of 'play out', another one with the structure of the sentence, and now this one with whether 'the demise' can be an object of 'say'. That is interesting because it is not a matter of structure but of semantics.


----------



## wandle

'The demise ....' cannot be the object of 'said'.
(1) Grammatically, those words would have to be between inverted commas in the text.
(2) Semantically, it is nonsense.
The object of 'said' is the relative pronoun 'that', referring to 'a tense 24 hours'.

The words 'played out in a tense 24 hours' cannot be an adjectival phrase with 'played out' as a participle.
(1) Graammatically, it would have to be between commas in the text. Even if commas were  inserted, taking it as an adjectival phrase would destroy the structure of the sentence.
(2) Semantically, it destroys the meaning of the sentence.
'Played out' is the main verb, because otherwise the sentence would not have one.


----------



## karlalou

I think I've learned the verb 'tell' takes only limited nouns like 'a story', but usually used to 'tell someone', while 'say' basically takes objects freely.


----------



## Thomas Tompion

karlalou said:


> I've been saying that the "proved" is the main verb. PaulQ made it clearer by adding 'to be'.


I know  you have, and you have been entirely wrong, I'm afraid.


----------



## siares

karlalou said:


> I think I've learned the verb 'tell' takes only limited nouns like 'a story', but usually used to 'tell someone', while 'say' basically takes objects freely.


That is too theoretical for me

'Say' is different from other verbs, but I can't say how this relates to the definition you quote:
_The demise (that the officials described) proved to be an education._
_The demise (that the officials talked about) proved to be an education._
_The demise (that the officials talked) proved to be an education.
The demise (that the officials said) proved to be an education._


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## wandle

Let us go back to the topic sentence:

'The demise of the American Health Care Act played out in a tense 24 hours *that* White House and Congressional officials said proved a political education for Trump and his top advisers on the promise and peril of governing, even with unified Republican control.'

A key question for understanding this sentence is: What did the officials say?
In other words, let us put their statement back into direct speech. There is a useful grammatical structure we can use for it:

White House and Congressional officials said, "It is those 24 hours that have proved (or 'are proving') a political education for Trump and his top advisers on the promise and peril of governing, even with unified Republican control".

Using direct speech with the cleft sentence structure 'It is ... that ...' lets the relative pronoun 'that' be the subject of its clause without having to be the object of 'said' at the same time.

Edited.


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## karlalou

I used 'the story' to make it easier for you. 'Say' can take an object. You say "I said it" "Say something".

The thing that they said proved to be an education.


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## wandle

What they said was a statement, which they expressed in words such as those in post 110.
The topic sentence leaves no doubt about that.


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## siares

karlalou said:


> I used 'the story' to make it easier for you. 'Say' can take an object.


Ah, that's true. But not any object, not an object like 'a demise (played out)' or 'toy (made in China)'
The thing he said yesterday...
The prayer he said yesterday...
The toy made in China he said yesterday... / The toy made in China he described yesterday...
The demise played out in 24 hours he said yesterday... / The demise played out in 24 hours he described yesterday....


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## Loob

I'm still mystified about why the original sentence is so difficult for non-native speakers when it's so straightforward for native speakers.
Can someone explain?


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## karlalou

It's no surprise that natives don't see the grammatical structure, and I also marvel at the complexity of my language from time to time.
The expression we have has very journalistic feel to it. They tend to have a peculiar style in my native tongue, too.


> In journalistic writing you write in what's called the inverted pyramid style. The 'meat' of the article will almost always be in the first paragraph, called the lede [or lead. (StackExchange)


I find Google has quoted a very good part out of the source page. Maybe this is relevant here.

For you, Siares. I've found "said" is used like these:


> The focus on Rice comes as lawmakers are trying to iron out why Nunes went to the White House two weeks ago to view documents* that he later said suggested* that the names of Trump transition team members had been improperly “unmasked.” (The Washington Post, Apr, 2017)


The bold part is like saying "*he later said that*", and the 'suggested' is the verb followed by a subordinate clause.



> He also pointed to a statement last year by ASU’s chancellor Sheri Everts, after student confrontations over pro-Donald Trump chalk drawings on campus *that some said were* racially charged. (The News & Observer, Apr, 2017)


It seems the 'a statement' is the antecedent of 'that', and 'were' is at least the verb of a clause and 'that some said' is the part of the subject of 'were'.

I don't know if they have special grammar for it, but if I'm asked what it is, then what I've learned is that it's a restrictive relative clause.


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## wandle

Loob said:


> I'm still mystified about why the original sentence is so difficult for non-native speakers when it's so straightforward for native speakers.


I drew attention to this in post 23:


wandle said:


> The original question was about the function of 'that' ... it has several functions at the same time.
> It is (1) the relative pronoun referring to the noun phrase 'a tense 24 hours' (2) the object of the verb 'said' and (3) the head substantive within the indirect statement 'that ... officials said proved [to be] a political education'.


The multiple functions of the word 'that' give rise to the complexity of the sentence and are the prime cause of its difficulty. I have now edited the direct speech version in post 110 by making it a cleft sentence, which does not alter the sense but now lets us see 'that' used within the direct speech. The change to direct speech using a cleft sentence allows 'that' to be the subject of its clause without having to be the object of the verb 'said' at the same time.

The two examples quoted by *karlalou* in post 115 are directly relevant because they also have the word 'that' performing the same three functions: (1) as the relative pronoun defining a preceding noun; (2) as the object of the verb 'said' and (3) as the head substantive in the indirect statement introduced by 'said'.





karlalou said:


> It seems the 'a statement' is the antecedent of 'that', and 'were' is at least the verb of a clause and 'that some said' is the part of the subject of 'were'.


Unfortunately, that is not a correct analysis of the second example: the antecedent of 'that' is 'drawings'.

Let me put the indirect statements of those two examples into direct speech, again using the cleft sentence construction in order to make 'that' the subject of its clause.

Example(a):
(1) Indirect speech:
' The focus on Rice comes as lawmakers are trying to iron out why Nunes went to the White House two weeks ago to view documents* that he later said suggested* that the names of Trump transition team members had been improperly “unmasked" '.
In this case, 'that' refers to 'documents' and defines what documents are meant.
(2) Direct speech, cleft:
Nunes later said, " It is the documents that suggest that the names of Trump transition team members have been improperly 'unmasked' ".

Example (b):
(1) Indirect speech:
'He also pointed to a statement last year by ASU’s chancellor Sheri Everts, after student confrontations over pro-Donald Trump chalk drawings on campus *that some said were* racially charged.'
 In this case, 'that' refers to 'drawings' and defines what made them contentious.
(2) Direct speech, cleft:
' Some said, "It is the chalk drawings that are racially charged" '.


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## Andygc

Loob said:


> I'm still mystified about why the original sentence is so difficult for non-native speakers when it's so straightforward for native speakers.
> Can someone explain?


I can't explain it, Loob, but your premise is wrong - posts #2 and #22 are by native English speakers.


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## Loob

Ah yes, you're right, Andy....


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## siares

wandle said:


> The original question was about the function of 'that'. The above analysis shows that it has several functions at the same time.
> It is (1) the relative pronoun referring to the noun phrase 'a tense 24 hours' (2) the object of the verb 'said' and (3) the head substantive within the indirect statement 'that ... officials said proved [to be] a political education'.


Wandle, I don't understand 3 (the word head substantive).
Could I check the sentence would be correct (albeit hard) even if the multifunctional 'that' were left out?
_'The demise played out in a tense 24 hours White House said proved a political education for Trump.'_

Thank you.


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## wandle

siares said:


> Could I check the sentence would be correct (albeit hard) even if the multifunctional 'that' were left out?
> _'The demise played out in a tense 24 hours White House said proved a political education for Trump.'_


Yes, it would. Remember, in such cases we still understand the word 'that', even though it is left out.


> I don't understand 3 (the word head substantive).


It relates to the statement made by the officials. What did they say? Their words were in a form such as this (converting indirect speech to direct speech):
"It was a tense 24 hours that proved a political education for Trump".

In this direct speech version, the word 'that' still refers to the tense 24 hours, but now it is the subject of its clause.
I used the term 'head substantive', so as to avoid saying in my analysis that it was the object of 'said' and the subject of 'proved' at the same time (though I believe some grammarians will say that that is the right way to put it).


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## siares

Thank you, wandle, I understand it now.

Re: post 94: I went through COCA examples for 'play out', thanks, Thomas Tompion, they did give me a feel for the idiom.


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## karlalou

Loob said:


> Ah yes, you're right, Andy....


Those are the people having not lost their precious innate sense of the language.


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## Loob




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## karlalou

karlalou said:


> *The demise of the American Health Care Act *(played out in a tense 24 hours) (*that* White House and congressional officials said)* [:end of the long subject] /proved [:verb] *(to be) a political education for Trump and his top advisers on the promise and peril of governing, even with unified Republican control.


The part before 'that' is said by the White House and congressional officials, but it doesn't say they also said the rest of it.
The statement "proved a political education for Trump" is something the writer is saying, not the White House.

The 'that' is used to summarize a story that someone said, and the clause or sentence takes it as the subject and continues to describe further what's happened to it in the predicate, as also seen in other examples.

It's different from ", someone said, " style.


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## wandle

karlalou said:


> (t*hat* White House and congressional officials said)


It is simply impossible for those words to be read as a single clause, capable of being distinguished from the basic structure of the sentence.

Why? Because 'said' cannot be used like that, as if it meant 'described', 'related' or 'mentioned'.

'Said' is the verb which introduces the indirect statement that makes up the rest of the sentence. See post 110, where I give a direct speech version of the indirect statement, in order to show what the officials said.


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## siares

karlalou said:


> The 'that' is used to summarize a story that someone said


'That' is not used like that. I don't think it is normal to 'say a story', but just for purposes of example let's say it is:
(The story about Titanic) that they said proved educational. (OK with 'told')
(The boat with which both the extremely rich and extremely poor passengers sunk alike) that they said / told proved educational.
The prayer that they said proved successful.


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## karlalou

Siares, whatever we think, they are used that way. _<-----Off-topic comment removed by moderator (Florentia52)----->_



> On the subject of immigration, Sessions vowed to uphold laws *that he said were* largely unenforced during the Obama administration. (VOA)


I get so many results with the keyword of just "voa news that * said were".
I recommend you VOA. They do news casting and have programs for learners. I think it's easier than the NY Times. For grammar questions, it's better to consult your grammar book.


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## wandle

karlalou said:


> I get so many results with the keyword of just "voa news that * said were".


Of course you do, because it is a valid construction. It just does not work in the way you think.
Full marks for persistence in your view (if that is a virtue). Nothing, I am afraid, for basic analysis of the sentence.





karlalou said:


> On the subject of immigration, Sessions vowed to uphold laws *that he said were* largely unenforced during the Obama administration.


This works in the same way as the topic sentence. 'That' is the relative pronoun referring to the antecedent noun 'laws': just that; definitely not referring to anything else.

The verb 'said' once again is introducing the indirect statement which makes up the latter part of the sentence. The significance of 'said' looks forward to what follows it.

We can once again show this point by converting the indirect statement into direct speech.
Indirect statement:
'Sessions vowed to uphold laws that he said were largely unenforced during the Obama administration.'

Direct statement:
' Sessions said, "I promise to uphold [the] laws which were largely unenforced during the Obama administration" '.


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## siares

Karlalou, PaulQ wrote OP doesn't work, because there is no main clause = no main verb. In order to make it work, he re-wrote it *with commas, and moving a verb. *If you agree with PaulQ's initial reading, then you agree there is no main verb in the original version.
Yet all this time you've been saying that there is one, 'proved'.
So is there one or isn't there one?

When reading 'played out' as an adjective. In that case, in OP in your reading the main verb is 'proved'. Total 2 verbs in the sentence: said and proved.
_The demise (played out in a tense 24 hours) that White House said proved a political education for Trump.'_

But what about in this second example? 'Vowed to uphold' is obviously not an adjective, but an active verb. Total 3 verbs in the sentence: vowed, said, were
_Sessions vowed to uphold laws that he said were largely unenforced during the Obama administration.
_
I tried to make a little scheme out of the sentence construction. The sentences we are discussing are B (built from A). Blue verbs mentioned below are 'verbs of opinion' (made up term): state, claim, swear, hear, say, think. To build B) from A) I am adding 1 such verb only; there could be several.
_____________________________________________________________________________

*A1)* noun (that verbs) *+ *main verb*. *The *noun is not an object* of the green verb. 'That' cannot be left out.
_They have the bird (that can fly very fast) in our Zoo._
_A book (that is very boring) made it to top of the bestseller list.
Jim met a girl (who liked ice-cream a lot).
_
add into the brackets '*X* opinionverbs'. You get the structure noun (that *X* verbs verbs) + main verb. 'That' can now be left out.

_*B1)* _
_They have the bird (that *the ornitologists* claim can fly very fast) in our Zoo._
_A book (that *I* think is very boring) made it to top of the bestseller list.
Jim met a girl (that *he* said liked ice-cream a lot)._
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

*A2) *noun (that Y verbs) *+ *main verb*. *The *noun is the object* of the green verb. (But not all transitive verbs can take any object, 'say' takes very few.)  'That' can be left out.
_The things (that *Tom* said) are shocking.
Jim met a girl (whom *he* liked a lot).
A person (whom *Sarah* killed) is going to be buried tomorrow._

Add into the brackets '*X* opinionverbs'. You get the structure noun (that *X* verbs Y verbs) + main verb where X and Y can be the same people/things: 

*B2)*
_The things (that *Sarah* swears *Tom* said) are shocking.
Jim met a girl (that *he* said *he* liked a lot)._
_A person (whom *Jim* claimed *Sarah* killed) is actually well and alive._
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The structure of OP and all the examples you posted is *B1* (green verbs don't have the discussed noun as their object: _'hours (they (X) said) __proved educational', laws were not upheld, drawings were racially charged, documents suggested__ the names had been unmasked_)

Here's a *B2)* example (noun is an object of the green verb)
_Earlier in the hearing, another lawyer for Shkreli, Marc Agnifilo, argued that prosecutors not be allowed to use certain __documents__ (that he (X) __said__ they (Y) __obtained)_ _from Shkreli's other former drug company, Retrophin, that actually belonged to two hedge funds that Shkreli had previously run. _(green verb has the discussed noun as its object: they obtained documents)

And *A2)* (noun is an object of the green verb, there is no blue verb)
_The literal things (that he (X) says) matter less to them as facts than as signals that he’s on their side._
_(I addded 'that' to the source)._

A2
*vox, The 9 types of lies Donald Trump tells the most*
Updated by Dara Linddara@vox.com  Oct 26, 2016, 11:21am EDT
B2
*CNBC, Pharma bro Martin Shkreli asks judge to order document hand-over, bar other evidence from use at trial*
Dan Mangan | @_DanMangan Wednesday, 26 Apr 2017 | 5:27 PM ET


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## Glenfarclas

Well, I finally read this whole thread, and I am just as bemused as others to see how it has "played out."  The sentence is indeed quite easy to understand.

I think that the possible sources of Karlalou's confusion are:

1)  Misunderstanding "played out" as being passive or as not being the main verb of the sentence;

2)  Misunderstanding how we use "said";

3)  Failing to grasp how "24 hours" can be the _grammatical _antecedent of "that" even though we know _logically_ that it was what happened during those hours that provided the actual education;

4)  Erroneously taking "that" as a demonstrative pronoun instead of a relative pronoun, as though the sentence were "The demise of the American Health Care Act played out in a tense 24 hours; that, White House and congressional officials said, proved a political education for Trump"; and/or

5)  Otherwise mistakenly trying to import some unknown element of Chinese syntax or grammar into English.​
In any case, the structure of the sentence is very clear, and it is the same as in:

The game took place in an arena that fire marshals said was not designed with sufficient exits for a crowd of that size.  (The arena, not the game, had insufficient exits.)

The hotel stands on a site that archaeologists say was an ancient tribal burial ground.  (The tribe buried its dead at the site, not in the hotel.)​


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## karlalou

Glenfarclas said:


> In any case, the structure of the sentence is very clear, and it is the same as in:
> 
> The game took place in an arena that fire marshals said was not designed with sufficient exits for a crowd of that size. (The arena, not the game, had insufficient exits.)
> 
> The hotel was built on a site that archaeologists say was an ancient tribal burial ground. (The tribed buried their dead at the site, not in the hotel.)


That's exactly the point I've been saying. I don't know how you've mixed up them though.

However, so, you think "The demise" got a will to do something and played out! Played out what?


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## Glenfarclas

karlalou said:


> So, you think "The demise" got a will to do something and played out!



Maybe Chinese is different, but in English it is entirely normal for nouns describing inanimate objects (or even concepts) to take active verbs:

The hotel _stands _on a site...
The mountain _blocks _our view...
Ornithology _requires_ a passionate love of birds...​


karlalou said:


> Played out what?



Nothing.  "Played out" is intransitive; it means "took place," "ran to its conclusion."


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## Cagey

It's time to draw this to a close. 

Cagey, moderator


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