Saturday, 26 December 2015

grammar - How to pied-pipe "only in respect to which ... by ... rule"?

I'm trying to pied-pipe the last dependent clause for simplicity, following Prof Lawler's comment:




...but not to legislative facts that will produce adverse consequences to them [//]
only in respect to which[,] they are members of a class adversely affected by the legislative rule.




Please advise on, correct, or improve my attempt? Please show all steps and thought processes.



Abbreviate legislative facts ... to them by *.
Then the present clause becomes:



  1. but not to *, only in respect to which[,] they are members of a class adversely affected by the legislative rule

  2. = but not to *, which they are members of a class adversely affected by the legislative rule only in respect to.

  3. = but not, they are members of a class adversely affected by the legislative rule only in respect to *.

He later remarked:




Pied piping doesn't affect adverbs, so switching around only is on your own hook. Only has a focus and has its own rules about where it may appear (basically right before the focus word, or right before a constituent containing the focus word)...


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