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That/which/who are commonly used to introduce a restrictive clause. But some sentences sound fine even without it.

Example:

John received medicines under development in the research lab.

OR

John received medicines that were under development in the research lab.

Is there a grammar issue with the first sentence for formal piece? If so, why?

ScotM
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Joe Black
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1 Answers1

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Your sentence works just as well with the relative clause as without it.

In the first sentence, the prepositional phrase "under development" modifies the direct object "medicines" directly rather than through the relative clause you added to the second sentence.

ScotM
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    However, using the relative clause reduces the chance of misconstruing it to mean that John received medicines "in the research lab". – Brian Hitchcock Dec 21 '14 at 02:39
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    I see your point. Can this be misconstrued? "John's treatment included medicines under development in the research lab." – Joe Black Dec 21 '14 at 03:25
  • It could be misconstrued, but if you wanted to indicate that *he received them in the lab* you would likely rewrite the sentence to make that clear. The intuitive interpretation of a reader is that modifiers appear immediately before or after the words they modify. – ScotM Dec 21 '14 at 20:05
  • @JoeBlack: I'm with you. The sentence "John's treatment included medicines . . ." cannot be misconstrued, in my opinion, having as it does its subject, "treatment"; its verb, "included"; its object, "medicines"; and its modifiers, both "John's" and "under development in the research lab." As such it's a well constructed, perfectly understandable sentence. Don – rhetorician Dec 21 '14 at 21:33
  • Careful Joe ! There are a lot of idiots out there who COULD misconstrue, "I sat in my chair." LOL! Communication is a negotiation. – ScotM Dec 21 '14 at 21:39