"He said that that that that that man said is wrong". I stopped being surprised by " had had" in Past Perfect long ago, yet this phrase confused me... I understand it so that: • 1st "that" is a conj

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"He said that that that that that man said is wrong". I stopped being surprised by " had had" in Past Perfect long ago, yet this phrase confused me... I understand it so that: • 1st "that" is a conjunction that begins indirect speech. • 2st "that" is a pronoun that refers to "these things, words, statements...". But the noun is omitted. • 3rd " that" is a conjunction that begins a subordinate clause that describes the previous "that", i.e. those things, words, statements... • 4th " that" is a kind of an unexplainable weird thing. Well, seriously, I don't understand what it means. • 5th "that" is a pronoun that describes a man. It's from a this-that-these-those rule and means that the man has already been mentioned beforehand and now a speaker means that very man. So to sum up this phrase can be converted into: "He said that those statements that very man made are wrong". But what does the 4th " that" mean and where am I wrong?

May 9, 2021 4:30 PM

Answers · 16

Hello, I would say: That-1: subordinating conjunction (that introduces indirect speech). That-2: demonstrative adjective (a determiner to the third "that") That-3: the word "that" used by the man, the "that" that is being discussed That-4: relative pronoun that introduces a dependent clause (it refers to the 'antecedent' "that-3") That-5: demonstrative adjective (a determiner to the noun "man") I think it can be (awkwardly) rephrased like this: He said that-1 this-2 "word"-3 (the word "that") which-4 this-5 man said is wrong" Admittedly, it is not a very common phrase... I'm not a native, so I may be wrong.

May 9, 2021

Was this a sentence you heard or something that was written? Because it doesn’t make any sense. There’s no reason to put that many “thats” in a sentence.

May 9, 2021